Exit Interview is an audio series produced by the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. Co-hosts David Mayorga, associate dean of public affairs and communications, and Ambreen Ali, senior communications and media strategist, speak with graduating students who won prizes for their senior theses, which are the culmination of a year’s worth of research, interviews, and analysis on a policy topic.

Noah James won the School of Public and International Affairs Thesis Prize, awarded to the seniors who write the best thesis on racial justice, for his thesis on the Lundin Oil Trial.

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The transcript below was auto-generated.

Intro: This is Ambreen Ali, and this is David Mayorga. You're listening to Exit Interview, a conversation with Princeton SPIA graduates about their senior year research.

Noah James: I'm Noah James, and I just graduated from the School of Public and International Affairs.

David Mayorga: That's fantastic. We're so excited to have you on and have a conversation about your senior thesis and incredible work, so niche in some ways. So I'm curious for you to tell us what it's about in your own words. 

NJ: Yeah, absolutely. So my thesis was about the Lundin Oil war crimes trial, which is an ongoing case happening in Stockholm right now. And so from 1999 to 2003, this oil company based in Sweden is accused of aiding and abetting war crimes committed by the Sudanese armed forces and allied militias in their effort to take over this concession area known as Block 5A in southern Sudan. It's about 30,000 square kilometers that was really at the front line of the Sudanese Civil War.

DM: But also, in sort of plain language, that block has potential for oil exploration. Is that why it was sort of an important piece of of territory, land?

NJ: Yeah, exactly. And the prosecution is really alleging that the company's activities there and their agreements with the Sudanese government really made that a front line of the conflict. There's all these instances where you have the company requesting security from the government of Sudan and requesting offensive military operations to take control of this area, so that they could extract oil. And over Lundin's activities until 2003 in that area, it's estimated that they really caused the deaths of at least 12,000 people, the forced displacement of 160,000 people, and then obviously a kind of incalculable loss as to income and opportunities and personal belongings.

DM: So all in the effort to exploit this land for, you know, oil and gas. So were they supporting one side of the, it seems like there was some sort of civil war happening, right?

NJ: Yeah, this was the world's deadliest civil war at the time, and it's pretty far along at this point. Sudan was pretty much in civil wars on and off since its independence. And so this is the second Sudanese Civil War. And so the corporation made a deal with the Sudanese armed forces and the government in Khartoum to extract oil. But basically the Sudanese armed forces offered to provide security in this area that wasn't actually under their control. It was under rebel control. And so any time that the company wanted to go in and extract, they actually required offensive operations to kick people out, to displace civilians, and to fight against the rebels that actually had control over the block, so that they could extract. And so they signed that first agreement in 1997 and then they're in the area until 2003, when they decided to pull out. And then there's a lot of kind of NGO reporting and advocacy. And finally, the Swedish prosecution authority opens investigation into Lundin's activities in Sudan in June 2010.

DM: What I was reading is that this is, this is unique. This had never happened. Had it never happened against a large oil company like this, or had it never happened in Stockholm in particular?

NJ: Yeah, it's kind of this case of firsts. So there's like a list of three firsts that I mentioned in the thesis, and so it's the first time since the Nuremberg Trials that a large listed company stands accused of aiding, defending war crimes. It's also the first time that anyone has both been accountable for any crimes committed during the civil war in Sudan. And most importantly, it's the first use of universal jurisdiction to hold a corporate officer accountable for crimes. So, universal jurisdiction allows national courts to hold accountable non-citizens for grave international crime. So basically, if you've aided or abetted genocide, war crimes, or crimes against humanity, you can be held accountable in any country, regardless of your citizenship. There's two executives on trial. One is Ian Lundin, who is the founder. It's named for him. It's his family company. And the second is Alexandre Schneiter, who at various points was CEO, vice president, had a bunch of different titles, but he is a Swiss citizen, so he's being held accountable for war crimes he committed in Sudan in Sweden, even though he's a citizen of Switzerland. So that's kind of the novelty of it. And then it's very novel for Sweden itself. It was an 11-year-long investigation. They produced a report that was 85,000 pages long, and the indictment finally came out in 2021, so it was the longest investigation in Swedish history, and it's on track to become the longest trial in Swedish history.

DM: What would be a positive outcome of this thing, aside from being found guilty of these war crimes?

NJ: Yeah, so that's, that's a really tough one. So there's going to be, I mean, if they're prosecuted, they can be sentenced to life. But the Swedish system was originally set up in a really positive way, in the sense that you could bring civil claims as part of a criminal case. And so these victims, originally there's about 32 plaintiffs, I believe, that are identified and named in the case. They could claim reparation originally as part of the criminal proceeding. And then I think last year, the judge actually decides to separate the claims, because it's just too complicated for the court to handle. So when there's logistical difficulties, they're able to separate them. But this essentially means that through the criminal proceedings, these victims will probably never have a chance to access reparation, because once the claim is separated, they have to put down a deposit in Swedish court in order to dock it basically. Exactly, they cover the fees. These are people from South Sudan who have literally nothing. And Block 5A now is actually largely underwater. So the only people that are living there are living in these garrison towns flooded with climate impacts. 

DM: If we could take a little bit of a deeper dive as part of your research, of your year-long project here looking at this issue, what sort of investigative tactics did you use?

NJ: Yeah, a little bit of everything. So because the case is ongoing, I'm actually not, my thesis doesn't explicitly look at the ongoing trial, and it's more focused on how we got to this, this novel case, like, why is this the case of its kind? And so I test two hypotheses, one being that the unique character and capacity of the Swedish criminal justice system was kind of critical in the development of this case, and the second, that the advocacy and evidence collection efforts of NGOs were instrumental in bringing the case to trial. And so I frame all my primary source analysis and interviews around basically these two hypotheses, and trying to understand, was it, you know, the Swedish criminal justice system, that Sweden is just really good at handling these international criminal cases, or was it NGOs, like, I mean, there were major reports that came out in the early 2000s from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Christian Aid, about the crimes that were being committed. And then there's a pretty direct link between this one report from the European Coalition on Oil in Sudan that was released in June 2010 and within two weeks, the prosecutor opened an investigation. And so I was interested in talking to lawyers that were involved in the case, but also these NGO officials and journalists that have covered it. And so it was a lot of desktop research in the fall in terms of, like, figuring out who the major players were and trying to kind of get contact. And then, I went to Stockholm for two weeks in January, and basically just snowball sampling at that point. I mean, people were amazing in terms of referring me to other people who were involved. The company lawyers did not want to speak to me, but a couple lawyers involved in the case spoke to me, a couple anonymously, and then really, the NGO leaders and the journalists were the were the most fascinating interviews. I mean, just I had gone in with a certain expectation that there might be evidence for for these hypotheses, and I remember walking out of some of these interviews, some of which were two to three hours long, and just being like, I can write my whole thesis just based on this one interview.

DM: That's incredible. So what did you find?

NJ: I ultimately prove basically that both of these hypotheses are true. So there are a number of kind of legal peculiarities of the Swedish system that made it kind of especially attuned to being able to handle a case like this. There's really strong safeguards of prosecutorial independence. So the Lundin company is very politically important in Sweden, and they're actually cousins of the Wallenberg family, which is, I think, the second largest, wealthiest dynasty in the world. It exceeds 250 billion dollars. They're Europe's richest family, and so safeguards and prosecutorial independence was really important. There's specialized international crime units in Sweden that have really attuned skill sets to doing kind of international investigations. They also really interpret customary international law very broadly. They exercise universal jurisdiction very liberally, and perhaps most importantly, they have a really low threshold for complicity in international crimes that other jurisdictions don't have. So it's much easier to prove this in Sweden, because all the prosecutor needs to prove, basically, is that the company was reckless in its operations. They don't have to prove that there was intent to cause harm to civilians, and they don't have to prove that it was material support. They don't actually have to show that they gave the Sudanese Armed Forces money to do what they did, even though the company did do that. So what they have to prove is actually very low in Sweden. So this was all really instrumental. And then I look at the role of non-governmental organizations as well, and that was, I think, the biggest shock, like I'd gone into this knowing, you know, Sweden has a very advanced criminal justice system. They're like, a huge proponent of international human rights. I kind of expected those systems to be in place, and then I started interviewing these NGO leaders, and the effort that has gone into getting this case to trial on their side is just extraordinary.

DM: Like raising awareness of the wrongdoing with the accusations of wrongdoing, bringing witnesses forward, advocacy at a number of levels, I imagine, from these organizations?

NJ: Yeah, exactly. I mean this European coalition, which is headed by the PAX peace movement in the Netherlands, they worked with Sudanese church groups in the beginning to kind of access these communities and understand what happened, and do these original reports. And there was this really fundamental report called Unpaid Debt that comes out in 2010, and they go back and forth, the prosecutor and share information as it's coming out, and they finally could convince him to launch an investigation. And I thought that's kind of where the influence would end, that they had raised awareness, that they, you know, collected this original evidence, and then that would be their major contribution. And then I'm speaking to these people who've worked on the case for, you know, two decades now, and throughout the entire investigation, they're helping the prosecutor find witnesses. They're doing kind of damage assessments in South Sudan, because South Sudan goes back to war, essentially, in '13, and so the prosecutors lose access. And so it's the NGOs. They basically smuggle witnesses out of South Sudan and get them to the Swedish embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, and then they fly the prosecutors to Kenya to do all this intake. And so they're kind of the connective tissue, because, yes, there's international crime units in Sweden, but they don't know anything about Sudan. They've probably never been to Sudan. They don't know anything about the conflict there, and they can't go in and access the place. So they really connect witnesses and collect this valuable evidence, and then at the same time, they prevent company intimidation. So there were originally reports that these NGOs were collecting of witnesses by contractors. The company had hired former British Special Forces officers that the company had basically contracted in Sudan to make sure people didn't talk. And these NGOs, over a few years, basically set up a pan-African safehouse network to smuggle these witnesses around between Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, and a host of other places to keep them safe so that they could finally make it to Stockholm to testify.

DM: That's absolutely incredible. And such important work. So if you could give you, sort of like the bottom line up front, like the takeaway for, I would say the masses, right, so, like, from a policy implication or applicability in sort of future sort of arenas, like, what would be your sort of like quick main takeaway from this body of work that you put so much effort into?

NJ: I would say there's really two. So, first, on the kind of corporate accountability side, since kind of the founding of modern international law dates back to the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, companies have always been insulated from any kind of responsibility under international law to uphold rights or to have any kind of responsible business conduct, and that many scholars argue was intentional. You know, the colonial powers used these East India Companies, for example, to really manage their overseas empires, while insulating from kind of any international legal obligation. And with globalization, the power of private enterprise has just become greater and greater, and it continues to be shielded legally. And so the big takeaway from the Lundin cases, I'm analyzing these factors that led to this, that's leading to this first prosecution that's ongoing, and it can really be a watershed moment here, in the sense that if these two people can be prosecuted -- you know, European, really well connected politically, financially, you know, wealthier than pretty much anybody else in the country. And if a South Sudanese victim who has nothing can come and testify in a European court, and these people can be held responsible, this is going to change, ideally, the entire risk calculation for companies going forward and how they approach human rights, how they approach human rights, due diligence, and social sustainability, and also when they get involved in conflict zones. I mean, this is going to have really big ramifications for any kind of business that profits off of conflict. And so that's the big one on the corporate side, in that, if this case sets a positive precedent, this will not be the last case of its kind. And national jurisdictions will really start to look at companies, and companies and boardrooms will look at, "Hey, you know, remember those guys in Sweden? Maybe, maybe we should take another look at this, and maybe we should take our human rights responsibilities more seriously." And then, on the other side, it's also just another example, I think most people, when they think about international justice and international law, they look at the ICC. They see what's happening there. They've prosecuted, you know, about 10 people in their whole history. They're under constant threats and sanctions, and they think international law is kind of a joke. And I think you see these universal jurisdiction cases cropping up that are really effective. I mean, in 2024 alone, there were 130 matters under investigation or in various stages of judicial proceedings in national jurisdictions, with 36 new cases opened. And so this is really the playing field, national courts is the playing field where international justice is playing out. And I think Lundin, in being the first corporate case of its kind, is going to set a precedent for those future cases. And we're going to have to, people are really going to have to look at national courts as this playing field for justice, rather than just seeing these international courts and seeing how they're not functioning.

DM: To close here, I mean, this has been such a fascinating conversation. You're definitely making the most of your Princeton, you know your time at Princeton, and we just wish you a happy summer. Congratulations again on all of your achievements and four great years here at Princeton, come back, visit soon, and thanks so much for your time.

NJ: Absolutely, thank you so much.

DM: Thanks so much.