Judicializing Transnational Corporations in a Global Legal Order: The Chiquita Affair in Colombia

Abstract

Transnational corporations have highly profited of a globalized economic order that until recently lacked a coercible legal framework. However, the change of legal paradigms has favored a new global legal order that provides new mechanisms whereby transnational corporations' actions become justiciable. The article deepens on the subject by studying the claims filed in American Courts by Colombian victims against Chiquita as a stage of the Colombian diffuse transitional justice process. It concludes that cooperation among legal regimes is needed to provide a coherent legal framework for complex transitional justice processes. Consequently it draws some guidelines to construct a research agenda that could contribute to a comprehensive study (e.g. one that includes transnational corporations) of Colombian transitional justice in times of globalized legal and economic orders.