This project explores how business actors have been held accountable for their roles in authoritarian regimes and armed conflicts. Through data-driven research, strategic litigation support, and international collaboration, CATJ bridges the gap between academic inquiry and real-world justice efforts—centering victims’ rights in transitional justice processes around the world.
The Corporate Accountability and Transitional Justice (CATJ) project investigates how businesspeople have been held accountable for their complicity in violence during authoritarian regimes and armed conflicts. It brings together academic insight and legal action to support victims’ rights, in collaboration with Professor Leigh Payne (University of Oxford), Argentinean NGOs CELS and ANDHES, and the Colombian organization Dejusticia. By exploring how transitional justice (TJ) mechanisms can include corporate accountability, CATJ fills a crucial gap in global justice efforts.
Domestic and international cases involving economic actors.
References to business complicity in official reports.
Mentions of economic actors in Colombia’s transitional justice judgments.
Transitional Justice and Corporate Accountability from Below explores how domestic courts in the Global South, often more effective than international bodies, pursue corporate complicity in crimes like forced labor and financial support of dictatorships. It introduces the idea of “corporate accountability from below,” emphasizing grassroots legal efforts.
Publications
CATJ operates across several transitional justice contexts, with a strong foundation in Latin America:
Argentina – Strategic litigation around corporate complicity during the dictatorship.
Colombia – Legal and policy influence in the post-conflict era, particularly through the Justice and Peace process and after the Peace Agreement with the FARC.
Chile – Collaboration on accountability processes for businesses involved in past regime violence.
The project also contributes to broader global discussions on transitional justice, supporting scholars and civil society organizations seeking justice beyond Latin America.
The success of the CATJ project is rooted in deep, sustained collaboration between academic institutions, civil society organizations, and human rights advocates. It began as a partnership between the University of Oxford, CELS, ANDHES, and Dejusticia—each bringing unique regional knowledge, legal expertise, and research capacity to the initiative.
Colombian research and action center dedicated to promoting human rights and social justice. It focuses on strengthening the rule of law, combating inequality, and empowering vulnerable populations.
Foundational human rights NGO in Argentina, born amid repression and now active in combating both legacy injustices and current structural inequalities. Its work continues to shape domestic and international human rights politics.
ANDHES is a regional NGO based in Argentina’s northwest that brings together legal defense, public advocacy, and human rights education to promote social change related to justice, memory, equity, and collective rights.
The IACHR is the entry point for individuals and groups seeking justice for human rights violations in the Americas. It investigates, issues recommendations, monitors situations across the hemisphere, and collaborates with the Inter‑American Court to enforce binding rulings—all under the umbrella of the OAS system.
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