Civil Liability of Corporate and Non-state Aiders and Abettors of International Terrorism as an Evolving Notion under International Law

AuthorSascha-Dominik Bachmann
PositionSenior Lecturer in Law, University of Portsmouth
Pages1-11
JICLT
Journal of International Commercial Law and Technology
Vol. 6, Issue 1 (2011)
1
Civil Liability of Corporate and Non-state Aiders and Abettors of
International Terrorism as an Evolving Notion under International Law
Dr. Sascha- Dominik Bachmann
Senior Lecturer in Law ,
University of Portsmouth
Sascha.Bachmann@port.ac.uk
Abstract. Global terrorist activities require financial economic support and a way to
combat terrorism is to limit access to such funding. Terrorist financing is a global problem which
is closely linked to money laundering and requires a well-co-ordinated, multilateral response
through international bodies, such as the United Nations S ecurity Council, the Financial Action
Task Force (FATF) of the OECD, as well as the use of civil litigation by victims against terrorist
groups and their sponsors. The proactive role of cor porations, such as banks (cf. the US Arab Bank
case) and other entities (cf. SNCB Securities), as well as individuals play as aiders and abettors in
financing international terrorism is well known and docu mented.
1
This article aims to outline the
evolving notion of corporate responsibility for human rights violations and acts of terrorism as a
legal option for the individual victim of terrorism to achieve some form of justice. This article
provides an overvie w of the current anti terrorism litigation under international and US law and
introduces the idea of a new international court for the adjudication of s uch international torts.
A. The Present Situation of Anti-Terrorism Litigation under International and Domestic
Law
1. Introduction
The starting point of this article is the acknowledgment that there exists a notion of Corporate Responsibility as
an accessory to terrorism related human rig hts violations: this observation can be lin ked to the growing influence
that multinatio nal cor porations (MNCs) o r multinational e nterprises (MNEs) have deve loped in the context of
transnational business operations over the last 50 years. The US scholar Blumberg (2002) describes the impact of
such MNC/MNEs on global trade and business:
“In the modern global economy, the largest cor porations conduct worldwide operatio ns. They
operate in the form of multinational corporate groups o rganized in “incredibly complex” multi-
tiered corporate structures consisting of a dominant parent c orporation, sub holding companies,
and scores or hundreds of subservient subsidiaries scattered aro und the world. The 1999 World
This p aper is a revised and extended version of the paper Civil Lawsuits against Corporate and Non-state Aiders and
Abettors of International Terroris, as an Evolving Notion under International Law presented at the 1
st
International Private
Law Conference, Barcelona on Nov.2, 2010. This paper won the 2010 JICLT Best Paper Award and was ori ginally published
in Kierkegaard, S.(2010).Private Law: Rights, Duties and Conflicts, pp.787-800
Senior Lecturer in Law (Universit y of Portsmouth); Assessor Jur, LL.M (Stellenbosch), LL.D (Johannesburg); Sascha-
Dominik undertook some prior work in that field while working as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the University of
Johannesburg before joining the University of Portsmouth, UK, in 2008; cf S-D Bachmann Civil Responsibility for Gross
Human Rights Violations – The Need For A Global Instrument (Pretoria University Press (PULP) 2008). This article won the
Best Paper 2010 award of the JICLT
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UN Consolidated List established and maintained by the 1267 Committee with respect to Al-Qaida, Usama bin Laden, and
the Taliban and other individuals.

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