A/HRC/4/35 page 8 II. CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY AND ACCOUNTABILITY FOR INTERNATIONAL CRIMES 19. However, States are not the only duty bearers under international law.15 Individuals have long been subject to direct responsibility for the international crimes of piracy and slavery, although in the absence of international accountability mechanisms they could be held liable only by national legal systems. The International Military Tribunals established after the Second World War confirmed that individuals bear responsibility for crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, and also imposed accountability on those within their jurisdiction, including corporate officers. With the entry into force of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2002, a permanent forum now exists in which individuals can be held directly accountable for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes if States parties fail to act.16 20. Long-standing doctrinal arguments over whether corporations could be “subjects” of international law, which impeded conceptual thinking on this issue and the attribution of direct legal responsibility to corporations, are yielding to new realities. Corporations are increasingly recognized as “participants” at the international level, with the capacity to bear some rights and duties under international law.17 As noted, they have certain rights under bilateral investment treaties; they are also subject to duties under several civil liability conventions dealing with environmental pollution. Although this has no direct bearing on corporate responsibility for international crimes, it makes it more difficult to maintain that corporations should be entirely exempt from responsibility in other areas of international law. 21. The ICC preparatory committee and the Rome conference on the establishment of the ICC debated a proposal that would have given the ICC jurisdiction over legal persons (other than States), but differences in national approaches prevented its adoption. Nevertheless, just as the absence of an international accountability mechanism did not preclude individual responsibility for international crimes in the past, it does not preclude the emergence of corporate responsibility today. 15 This section provides partial responses to paragraphs 1 (a) and (c) of resolution 2005/69. 16 International legal responsibility attaches to individuals for a wider range of acts than those covered by the ICC Statute. 17 Rosalyn Higgins, current President of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and Theodor Meron, former President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), have both used the term “participants”. In 1949, the ICJ stated: “The subjects of law in any legal system are not necessarily identical in their nature or in the extent of their rights, and their nature depends on the needs of the community.” Advisory Opinion on Reparations for Injuries suffered in the service of the United Nations, ICJ Rep 174 at 179 (1949).