Talisman Energy and the Second Sudanese Civil War
Seeking Accountability in International Crimes
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33063/pbj.v11i2024.560Keywords:
corporate complicity, transitional justice, international crimes, corporate social responsibilityAbstract
Holding corporations accountable for complicity in international crimes is especially difficult, due to lacking international legal guidelines and the fact that corporations do not become complicit for the same reasons that perpetrators commit crimes. The oil company Talisman Energy has been praised for its 2003 divestment from Sudan, but the corporation was never held accountable for its involvement in the second Sudanese civil war and victims were not compensated. This paper analyzes the Talisman Energy case through the lens of the International Commission of Jurists’ framework for corporate complicity, and illustrates the advantages of an adaptable knowledge and foresight threshold complemented by measures of causality and proximity. Adopting a holistic framework like this in legal provisions may prevent wrongful acquittals in the future and contribute to transitional justice for the victims of international crimes. While there is more work to do to design the appropriate legal provisions, this exploratory study recommends three fields of action: a broader awareness of the corporate accountability gap; a consideration of corporate accountability in transitional justice programs; and further research on the overlap between corporate accountability and transitional justice.
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Copyright (c) 2024 Emilia Goessler

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