Over the summer, the prospect grew for 'corporate criminals' to one day appear in the dock.

Earlier in the year the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) opened its doors and is now reviewing possible cases. The ICC's Statute has a very strict remit covering accepted definitions of serious criminal acts. The general view of legal experts is that the criminal liability of corporations is not well established in international law. 48 A change to the ICC statute would be needed for the Court to put heads of companies on trial alongside heads of states and armies, when it comes up for review in 2008. However, this review will concentrate on whether the ICC has jurisdiction over contentious issues like the illegal use of force, so activists in signatory countries to the ICC convention would have to lobby their governments hard - and soon - to get corporate accountability on the agenda. 49

Despite all this - and in the present, febrile atmosphere of international relations - it appears that the Court won't necessarily be cowed into only prosecuting Washington and London's foes-of-the-moment, but might extend its remit to look at big business after all. The ICC statute just about allows this if it can be shown that an organisation clearly and materially abetted an act of mass-killing, though this will obviously need to be tested in the Court at some point.

In July, there were early signs that the ICC might bring prosecutions over the continuing genocide in the Congo. "Companies who are doing illegal business and financing the crimes will know that we are following them," Luis Moreno Ocampo - the Court's chief prosecutor - told journalists at a press conference in the Hague. 50

Also in 2003 a Belgian 'war crimes' law was amended to allow trials in absentia, and to authorise the Belgian courts to try cases that fall outside the jurisdiction of the ICC. In June, the US lobbied Belgium to drop the new law, including by threatening to suspend financial support for a new NATO building in Brussels. 51 However, according to a January 2003 Guardian article there will be limits to the law's provenance, with or without US pressure, indicating that - like the ICC, which will subject all cases to a pre-trial review to decide if they are admissible - it is likely to be a highly political legal instrument. 52