The Arms Industry and International Criminal Liability: Challenging the Status Quo?

Abstract

There is increased public attention directed to the topic of weapons trade and this is a positive development because enhanced scrutiny holds a promise of bringing more accountability to the field that has long been obscure. This article reviews the possibility of criminal prosecutions of corporate officials for supplying weapons to Gaza, Yemen and Ukraine at the International Criminal Court (ICC) or a similar forum. The Nuremberg Trials planted seeds for such an endeavour by holding several industrialists criminally liable. Yet, modern international criminal law has so far largely stayed away from defining the scope of individual criminal responsibility for corporate officials. The case studies in this paper reveal that the moment is not ripe for commencing actual investigations at the ICC. Nonetheless, a future consensus is slowly building through (often failed) attempts to use legal or policy avenues to define the standards of conduct in the weapons trade.