While political and military leaders are generally seen as the most responsible perpetrators, corporations often also have an important role to play in the commission of atrocity crimes. This chapter broadly explores the involvement of corporations in atrocity crimes, where links between the company and its activities and the commission of such types of crimes can be identified. It is based on data from a set of cases collected by the authors, which includes 105 cases since World War II. The chapter starts by defining features of corporate involvement in such crimes, and then provides an overview of types of crimes, corporations, industries, and involvement in atrocity crimes since 1945. It then proceeds to detail the processes, mechanisms, and gains of such involvement or the “crime scripts.” An in-depth analysis of two historical cases, one from the Holocaust and one from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, complements this overview.
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