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20 Berkeley J. Int'l L. 91 (2002)
Corporate Complicity: From Nuremberg to Rangoon - An Examination of Forced Labor Cases and Their Impact on the Liability of Multinational Corporations

handle is hein.journals/berkjintlw20 and id is 99 raw text is: Corporate Complicity: From Nuremberg to Rangoon' An Examination of Forced Labor Cases and Their Impact on the Liability of Multinational Corporations By Anita Ramasastry* Corporations have neither bodies to be punished, nor souls to be condemned. They therefore do as they like. -Edward, 1st Baron Thurlow, English Jurist and Lord Chancellor (1731-1806) INTRODUCTION2 Can multinational corporations (MNCs) violate the law of nations? If so, how should nation-states deal with them when they are perpetrators?3 In recent 1. Rangoon is the capital city of Burma. Myanmar is the name for Burma in the Burmese language. The country is currently ruled by the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), which took power in a 1988 coup, suspending the legislature and the judiciary. In 1989, the Burmese military government issued a decree that the country be known by the name of Myanmar. Since then, Burma has been referred to as Myanmar in Burmese government publications. The name Burma is still very much in use both unofficially and by other nations that do not recognize the present military government. * Assistant Professor of Law and Associate Director, Shidler Center for Law, Commerce & Technology, University of Washington School of Law. The author served as a Senior Legal Advisor and Attorney for the Claims Resolution Tribunal for Dormant Accounts in Switzerland during 1998. The author would like to thank Professor Richard Buxbaum for his support of her research concern- ing the Second World War and the current reparations debate, as well as Professor Joan Fitzpatrick for her guidance. Additional thanks arc due to the Reference Librarians at Gallagher Law Library and Jess Marden for their unflagging dedication and assistance, and to Professor Walter J. Walsh for his willingness to listen. Generous assistance for this research was provided by the Helen R. White- ley Center, Friday Harbor Labs, University of Washington.. 2. Although this article includes many textual excerpts, such excerpts are important because they emphasize the focus that courts (both contemporary and historical) have focused on slave labor and its status as a violation of the law of nations and also on the role of corporate entities (referred to as legal persons) as participants in or beneficiaries of such crimes. 3. Multinational corporations, or MNCs, have been defined as corporations with affiliates or business establishments in more than one country. See W.H. Meyer, Human Rights and MNCs: Theory v. Quantitative Analysis 18 HUMAN RIrrs Q. 369 (1996). Other terms that are often used

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