ABSTRACT

The protection of the rights of victims is nowadays a central concern in transitional processes. It is appropriate to locate the subject of corporate accountability within the general context of economic power and conflict. The involvement of palm oil companies in the Colombian conflict provides a strong example of the gray area between legality and illegality in which companies exploit conflict to profit economically. Regarding direct responsibility, Drummond and Coca-Cola have both been accused of paying paramilitary groups to violently resolve labor disputes, thereby suppressing the unions organizing the workforce and generating increased earnings from decreased labor costs. Establishing responsibility and correcting the illegal actions is possible when there is a sufficient degree of certainty about what happened. However, one could think about designing mechanisms, voluntary and coercive, that respond by jointly applying the principles of corrective and distributive justice, and simultaneously restore victims to their previous position and enhance their economic, political, and social power by applying redistributive principles.