Corporate Complicity and finance as a "Killing Agente": The Relevance of the Chilean Case

Abstract

The legal basis for corporate accountability for violations of human rights has evolved robustly over the past decades. Yet, accountability for financial complicity has significantly lagged behind. This article attempts to address this gap in order to help close it. It describes the legal and judicial trends in the evolution of corporate responsibility for complicity, identifying points at which financial complicity could have been addressed as a contributing factor to human rights abuses, but was not. As a case study, it examines the political context of the Chilean dictatorship, the official US position on withholding financial aid, the macroeconomic and budgetary impact of the loans extended, and, finally, their effects on the human rights situation in Chile. It develops the argument that when judging financial complicity, the fundamental criterion to employ should be the foreseeable use of the commodity, rather than its inherent quality.