Criminalizing corporate actors for exploitation of natural resources in armed conflict: Un natural resources sanctions committees and the international criminal court

Abstract

A coherent framework for the protection of natural resources in situations of armed conflict remains absent. This concern is heightened by the current prevalence of self-financed war economies centred on mineral exploitation. Interestingly, targeted sanctions regimes imposed by the Security Council to resolve natural resource-related armed conflicts have predominantly focused on foreign forces. In doing so, such regimes have uncovered the seemingly vital role that the private sector plays in these modern 'resource wars'. The effectiveness of natural resources sanctions regimes set out by the Security Council in coercing a change in target behaviour is debated. Nonetheless, the interplay of these sanctions regimes with international criminal law has developed in specificity and authority and thus warrants investigation. In this spirit, this article examines the extent to which United Nations natural resources sanctions regimes impact the international criminal architecture and, in particular, the International Criminal Court's (ICC) prosecution of corporate actors for the war crime of pillage. This article will proceed in three sections. First, it analyses the linkage between listings for Security Council sanctions and the initiation of investigations at the ICC and, in particular, the regimes' influence on triggering investigations against corporate actors. Second, it assesses the ability of these regimes' expert reports to establish criminal complicity, with a specific focus on the practice of the ICC in admitting these reports into evidence. Third, it reflects on these regimes' potential to influence prosecutorial strategy at the ICC towards a focus on the economic dimensions of armed conflict. The article concludes that the sanctions regimes can have a considerable impact on the international criminalization of corporate actors involved in the continuation of these modern resource wars.