Accountability for Corporate Complicity in Human Rights Violations: Argentina?s transitional justice innovation?

GABRIEL PEREIRA; LEIGH A. PAYNE

The Economic Accomplices of the Argentine Dictatorship: Outstanding Debts

Cambridge University Press

Lugar: New York; Año: 2015; p. 29 - 46

´Democracy or Corporations´ were the words that appeared on posters and in graffiti on the March 26, 2014 commemoration of the 1976 coup in Argentina. Those words capture the efforts that the country has begun in holding businesses accountable for their role in the military regime?s repressive apparatus. It might not be surprising that Argentina, as the world leader in transitional justice innovations, might add corporate accountability to its set of accomplishments. The puzzle underlying this chapter, however, is whether other countries will follow Argentina?s lead or if the factors shaping the corporate accountability processes in Argentina are unique and nontransferable to other contexts. We thus explore Argentina?s efforts in a comparative framework and also attempt to build a theoretical link connecting accountability for business complicity with the broader transitional justice field. To fulfill these objectives we raise and address the following questions: Why and when should corporate accountability become a new focus within transitional justice? Where and how are these transitional justice innovations occurring? We conclude with some reflections on the question of what factors contribute to success in achieving transitional justice goals through accountability for corporate complicity. Our responses to these questions draw on our cross-national research on accountability for corporate complicity, with a particular focus on Argentina in a comparative context.