FLANDERS TODAY Face of Flanders: Lynn Verrydt

09-01-13 Face of Flanders | Flanders Today

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Alan Hope

Face of FlandersLynn Verrydt

Most Masters’ students hopetheir thesis will be enough toget them through to graduation;Lynn Verrydt hopes one daythat her ideas might “make amodest contribution” to achange in international law.

A law student at GhentUniversity, Verrydt was lastmonth awarded the FlemishThesis Prize, an annual awardworth €2,500, which carrieswith it prestige and mediaattention. The prize started in2002, when it was awarded tothree winners. It has since gone

to theses on subjects as diverse as sports reporter Karel Van Wynendaele, travelling to and from school in the1950s and variety theatre productions in Ghent.

Verrydt’s thesis deals with the legal liability of companies under criminal law. “Whenever people talk aboutgenocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity, we automatically think of names like Radovan Karadzic,Ratko Mladic or Jean­Pierre Bemba,” she said. “But do people also think of multinationals, like Shell, Chevronor Blackwater? Whether as perpetrator or accomplice, companies are also sometimes guilty of suchinternational crimes. But a loophole in international law makes it impossible to prosecute the entity behindsuch crimes, even though that is who profits the most.”

A weighty question and also a topical one, whether it concerns the widespread use of military contractors inwar zones or the inability of any country but Iceland to incarcerate bankers responsible for the financial crisis of2009.

“I realise the legal liability of corporations will probably remain a judicial fiction,” Verrydt admitted. “But it wouldbe nice if my thesis were able to make a modest contribution in support of a new legal model.”

Verrydt received the award in the city hall in Ghent from vice­premier Johan Vande Lanotte, himself a jurist byeducation who has taught part­time at Ghent since 1988. “Here in Flanders we have an extremely valuableraw material with which we can do a great deal: brains and knowledge,” he said at the ceremony. “Butknowledge can only develop if we share it with each other. The Flemish Thesis Prize allows the remarkablework of young and ambitious researchers to be shown to the wider public.”

(January 9, 2013)