Abstract
Corporations have been around for centuries. Their entire operating principle is to generate profit. All other purposes are ancillary. However, people within corporations and running corporations make decisions for these entities and sometimes those decisions lead to criminal conduct in pursuit of that profit motive. History provides several examples of such conduct playing out in egregious ways, from the time of the British East India Company's exploitation of the Asian Indian subcontinent in support of Great Britain's colonial expansion to the time of I.C. Farben's exploitation of slave labor during World War II in support of German military efforts. Efforts today to hold corporations accountable for international crimes such as genocide are informed by these historical examples and arguments to finally do something about it are buttressed by them as well.