Corporate War Crimes: Prosecuting the Pillage of Natural Resources by James G. Stewart – Open Society Justice Initiative

In “Corporate War Crimes,” law professor James G. Stewart offers a roadmap of the law governing pillage as applied to the illegal exploitation of natural resources by corporations and their officers. The text traces the evolution of the prohibition against pillage from its earliest forms through the Nuremburg trials to today’s national laws and international treaties. In doing so, Stewart provides a blueprint for prosecuting corporate plunder during war.

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The Pillage of Eastern Congo Gold: a Case for the Prosecution of Corporate War Crimes by Kathi Lynn Austin – a Conflict Awareness Project interim briefing report

This report highlights the results of a nine-year international investigation of an unlawful conflict gold enterprise originating in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Foreign companies have taken advantage of armed conflict to make millions of dollars in illegal profit, while perversely incentivizing war and widespread atrocities.

The trail covers each step of the “blood gold” supply chain: illegal mining by a rebel group, smuggling across DRC’s border into neighboring Uganda, re-export of the gold ore by a Ugandan trader to refineries in South Africa, Switzerland, and United Arab Emirates, laundering of the refined gold through international banks — and how this illegal trade was orchestrated by two British firms as the ultimate beneficiaries.

Download the CAP Briefing Report