This autumn, two oil industry executives may be indicted in Sweden
for aiding and abetting international crimes in Sudan. Furthermore, the
public prosecutor will also likely seek forfeiture of $400 million from
their company, Lundin Petroleum, reflecting the benefits derived from
its Sudanese operations. The case follows the 2018 French indictment of
LafargeHolcim for alleged crimes committed in Syria, showing that
corporate liability for international crimes is gaining traction, before
European courts at least.
This event aims to discuss the Lundin case, which has the potential
of becoming a landmark trial because of the novelty and complexity of
the legal issues that the court will have to decide. In particular, with
regard to the assessment of the individual criminal liability of the
executives of Lundin, the determination of the applicable standards of
proof, the question whether a lack of due diligence is sufficient for a
finding of guilt, and the limits and overlap of individual criminal
liability of corporate directors on the one hand and corporate criminal
liability of organisations on the other.
The event will feature three speakers, who will be presenting the
various dimensions of the case and will put it into the more general
context of the current legal developments with regard to criminal
liability of corporations (and their executives) for human rights
violations:
- Egbert Wesselink will provide an introduction to Sudan’s oil war,
describe Lundin’s role in it, and examine the human rights
responsibilities of the company and its shareholders.
- Dr. Mark Taylor will discuss how the Lundin case sits in global
developments regarding the criminal liability of corporations for human
rights abuses in the context of conflicts.
- Miriam Ingeson will give a Swedish perspective to the legal
framework of the case and analyse the legal issues that it raises at the
intersection between national and international law.
The speakers:
- Egbert Wesselink serves as Senior Advisor in PAX,
the Dutch peace movement, where he is responsible for the programme on
Natural Resources, Conflict and Human Rights, that focusses on the
impact of international enterprises on the rights and interests of
communities, notably in Sudan, South Sudan, DRC and Colombia. He
represents PAX in several multi-stakeholder initiatives, including the
Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights in an effort to
increase the impact of emerging international guidelines, and advises
various enterprises.
- Dr. Mark Taylor is a Postdoctoral Fellow,
Department of Private Law, University of Oslo and presently a Visiting
Fellow at the Amsterdam Center for International Law, University of
Amsterdam. Mark writes on legal and policy frameworks applicable to
responsible business and will publish the book “War Economies and
International Law: Regulating the Economic Activity of Armed Conflict”
(based on his PhD thesis) with Cambridge University Press. Mark is an
advisor to various initiatives in the field of responsible business and
is a member of the Norwegian Ethics Information Commission (2018-2019), a
government commission which is considering a proposed law on human
rights information in the global value chains of Norwegian business.
- Miriam Ingeson is a PhD candidate at Uppsala
University, Sweden. Her research project explores corporate criminal
liability in international criminal law, and the intersection of
domestic criminal law and public international law. She has previously
held positions with the Swedish Prosecution Authority, the Folke
Bernadotte Academy and the Swedish Ministry of Justice.
The moderator:
- Dr. Antoine Duval is Senior Researcher at the Asser Institute and the coordinator of the Doing Business Right project.
For some background material on the case and its wider context, see www.unpaiddebt.org & www.lundinhistoryinsudan.com.
More information and registration Here!