Evaluating the likelihood of an ICC prosecution for crimes committed by Chiquita Banana Employees in Colombia

In May 2017, three non-governmental organisations submitted an Article 15 Communication to the International Criminal Court seeking the expansion of the Office of the Prosecutor’s on-going preliminary investigation in Colombia to include corporate officials of Chiquita Brands International, Inc. (‘Chiquita’). I scrutinised the claims made in the Communication in a recent article published in the Melbourne Journal of International Law in an effort to determine whether this case could serve as an opportunity for the International Criminal Court to pursue corporate officials for their complicity in the commission of atrocity crimes. This could act as an opportunity for the Court to expand the scope of its work beyond the military and political leaders it has pursued thus far, and to provide an international forum in which to try the employees of corporations involved in the commission of atrocity crimes. Unfortunately, the International Criminal Court’s Statute, as written, will make it very difficult for such prosecutions to succeed.