State–Corporate Criminality in the Agri-Food Sector: Challenges to its Regulation in a Semi-Peripheral Country

Abstract

In Argentina, the close relationship between the state and agribusiness companies, under the framework of neoliberalism, has generated a context conducive to the commission of crimes by the powerful and to social harm to the most vulnerable. State–corporate criminality, a phenomenon that is particularly evident in semi-peripheral countries, acquires a relevant dimension in the Argentine agri-food sector. This article explores the specificity of criminogenic risk in this sector, considering Argentina’s insertion in the global market and the characteristics of the agri-food market. In Latin America, critical criminology has focused its attention on state violence, especially in the context of military dictatorships, where massive human rights violations constituted a serious transgression of the international legal order and human dignity. However, corporate responsibility, and in particular state–corporate criminality, has been relegated to the background. Seeking to fill this gap in the literature, the article examines the existing regulatory tools, such as the Law on Criminal Liability of Legal Entities (Law 27,401), evaluating its scope and limitations to address state–corporate criminality in the agri-food sector. It also highlights the importance of the ruling of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) in the Miskito Divers case as a fundamental precedent for rethinking state–corporate responsibility in Latin America, especially in a context of social inequality.