Rebecca Hamilton: “Enablers of Atrocity”

Northeastern Law’s Center for Global Law and Justice 2025 Speaker Series, Issues in Human Rights and Humanitarian Law

Featuring:
Rebecca Hamilton
Professor of Law, American University Washington College of Law

The post-World War II Nuremberg Trials marked a watershed moment in international criminal justice by holding individuals criminally responsible for atrocities. Yet, the failure to proceed with the proposed second international trial of industrialists - whose corporate activities materially enabled Nazi crimes, left a critical legacy gap in accountability for corporate enablers of mass atrocities. This gap endures in the design and practice of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which, despite its groundbreaking mandate, remains primarily focused on direct perpetrators and masterminds. While ICC was conceived as a guardian against genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, its doctrinal and institutional design limit its ability to reach enablers. Drawing on insights from the burgeoning literature on atrocity prevention, Enablers of Atrocity argues that enablers - be they individuals, entities, or, typically, both -- provide the necessary psychosocial, physical and technological infrastructure and/or resources, for mass atrocities to be committed. It explains how these enablers typically escape international criminal liability due to the law's ex post focus, stringent mens rea requirements, and prosecutorial selectivity. Narrowing in on corporate enablers in particular, and in contrast to their state-enabler counterparts, there is no alternative body of international law through which to hold them accountable when they fall outside of international criminal law’s reach. By developing a typology of corporate enablers - financiers, media outlets, natural resource extractors, weapons suppliers and technology companies -- and situating them within broader institutional and legal ecosystems, the project illuminates the urgent need to extend accountability mechanisms beyond the narrow focus on direct perpetrators and masterminds. To address the corporate enablers accountability gap, the project proposes a multidimensional framework: refining criminal law interpretive strategies, leveraging tort and regulatory regimes, and strengthening institutional incentives across public and private sectors.

Respondent:
Serena Parekh
Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Northeastern University

Questions? 
Please contact Professor Zinaida Miller at [email protected].

The lecture series is open to the Northeastern University community and the general public.