Introduction

Chapter 1 highlights recent developments concerning liability and accountability, illustrating how professionals, senior managers, and organizations can face manslaughter and corporate homicide charges. It provides our perspective on significant changes in corporate criminal liability and corporate manslaughter, which results not only from admitting the accident investigation report and sensitive aviation data into a court of law but also from the increasing focus of prosecutors and judges on examining core elements of a Safety Management System, such as hazard identification, safety risk assessment processes, and the discharge of duties and responsibilities, when they determine liability and accountability of organizations such as CEOs, accountable executives, postholders, and other senior managers. The chapter then goes on to provide an outline of what our readers can expect in each chapter.