What are the consequences of complicity, and how does the tax argument lead to the demand that all companies leave?
Directly complicit companies must stop the violations, make amends and end all relations with the violators, and beneficiaries should compensate victims. International guidelines don't normally demand leaving the country. The tax argument extends complicity to every company, since taxes fund the aggressor state, which leads to the demand that all of them leave.
Standard consequences:
- Direct complicity: end the human-rights violations immediately, make reparations, and cut all relations with those committing them.
- Beneficial complicity: profiting from others' suffering is immoral, so beneficiaries should compensate those affected, for example Ukrainian farmers for the stolen grain.
- International guidelines such as the UN Global Compact link complicity to consequences like victim compensation, but not to leaving an oppressive state.
The tax argument: any company doing business in a state whose officials commit atrocities or wage war pays taxes, and taxes fund the state budget, which can fund continued atrocities. Applied to Russia, this makes every company there complicit. Since complicity theory holds that any participation must end, and relations must be cut if it can't be ended, it follows that when the state itself is the violator, all companies must leave.