INTRODUCTION

Being an introductory essay to a book which is the final publication of the EU-funded project “Victims and Corporations. Implementation of Directive 2012/29/EU for victims of corporate crimes and corporate violence” (www.victimsandcorporations.eu), it is an overview of the main topics therein. Within the scope of the Directive and its definition of ‘victim’, though, there is a relevant group of victims who have not yet received enough consideration, and whose access to justice may be at stake. It is the victims of corporate crimes, and particularly of corporate violence, meaning those criminal offences committed by corporations in the course of their legitimate activities, which result in harms to natural persons’ health, integrity, or life. Within the vast area of corporate crime, the project and this publication focus on three main strands of victimisation: environmental crime, food safety violations and offences in the pharmaceutical industry. Within such framework, the essay especially focuses on one crucial feature in the relationship between corporations and victims of corporate violence, namely the epistemic disproportion disadvantaging the formers and preventing their ability to protect themselves. Secrecy, which is typical feature of organizations makes this disproportion still worse and acts also as a shield for corporate executives from the real consequences of their decisions. Victim protection and corporate violence prevention thus require legal and cultural tools addressing such epistemic disadvantage and arousing, among corporate managers, the due ‘salience’ of actual or potential victims needs. Just the recourse to restorative justice may be included among the ways to favour such a paradigm shift.