Business in Genocide – Understanding the how and why of corporate complicity in genocides

A holistic analysis of the implication of businesses in genocides that combines historical evidence with tentative theorization is so far unavailable. This paper aims to contribute to start to fill this gap and, ultimately, to start a process of preventive learning concerning private sector involvement in genocides. Based on a literature review, the paper identifies four main roles – victim, preventer, direct accomplice and indirect accomplice – and three main motivations – profit maximization, economic survival and institutional pragmatism – concerning corporate complicity in genocides. Subsequently, the paper explores the concrete roles that companies played in three of the most uncontested cases of corporate complicity in genocide: the Jewish, Kurdish and Darfurian genocides. The paper compares the ways in which scholars have analyzed the roles of companies in these genocidal processes and the motivations that drove companies to play this particular role. Based on these case illustrations, the most pertinent knowledge gap concerning corporate complicity in genocides is located in the absence of empirical data about the interests and motives driving corporate decision-making throughout genocides. The paper concludes that this knowledge gap needs to be addressed if we are to better understand and potentially prevent corporate complicity in genocide.