Curriculum Guide · Courses

Professor Jain

J.D. Seminar 087 | 2 credit hours

When can we hold who accountable and for what – this question is of central importance in the discourse of criminal law as well as tort law. The difficult task of answering it takes on an added dimension in cases of collective harms, which are typically perpetrated by a collective or group entity unto individuals who are also part of a collective. This course will concentrate on accountability for cases of collective and mass atrocity and the mechanisms for attributing responsibility, in crime as well as in tort, to the alleged perpetrators of these atrocities.

The modern law of torts and crime considers the individual as the paradigm unit of action as well as bearer of responsibility. This assumption comes under considerable strain in cases of mass atrocity where the entity sought to be held responsible is either a collective as in the case of tortious liability of corporations, or the individual as part of a collective, which is the typical scenario in international crimes such as genocide. We will analyse issues of collective and individual responsibility in tort and crime through an examination of select debates in law and philosophy, comparative and international criminal law, public international law, and the law of torts.

The specific areas covered in this course will include: law and philosophy literature on individual and collective intentions; the structure and basis of criminal responsibility in the common law and the civil law; accomplice and conspiracy liability in domestic jurisdictions; developments in international criminal law on joint criminal enterprise and co-perpetration; recent litigation under the Alien Torts Statute in the US and comparable cases elsewhere on the possibility of corporate tortious responsibility for severe human rights violations.

Recommended: Background knowledge in criminal law, tort law and public international law, though not essential, will be helpful.

Students may not receive credit for both this seminar and Individual and Collective Responsibility Seminar.