scholarly journals Historical injustices and transitional justice interventions in Kenya: victims� and interveners� experiences and perceptions

2021 ◽  
Vol 9s2 ◽  
pp. 75-102
Author(s):  
Muema Wambua
Keyword(s):  
Transitional Justice ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Conflict Transformation ◽  
Focus Group Discussions ◽  
Group Discussions ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
The One ◽  
Critical Constraints

This article examines historical injustices and transitional justice interventions that were initiated after the 2007 electoral conflict in the quest for conflict transformation in Kenya. During the mediation led by Kofi Annan that culminated in the signing of the National Accord in February 2008, transitional justice was emphasised as critical in attaining conflict transformation. In response, the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) and International Criminal Court (ICC) interventions initiated a complementary restorative�retributive approach in the pursuit of transitional justice in the country. Based on content analysis of fieldwork data extracted from twenty-five focus group discussions within a sampled cluster of ten counties, this study examines and presents the experiences and perceptions of victims of historical injustices, on the one hand, and the experiences and perceptions of interveners of conflict transformation programmes, on the other hand. This is with a view to explicating the outcomes and impacts of transitional justice interventions in conflict transformation in Kenya in the post-National Accord era. In the findings, a key argument is raised that unresolved three-tier historical injustices remain critical constraints in the pursuit of transitional justice and in the quest for effective conflict transformation in Kenya.

Measuring Performance and Shaping Identity

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annika Jones
Keyword(s):  
Performance Indicators ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Access To Justice ◽  
Victim Satisfaction ◽  
Efficiency And Effectiveness ◽  
Justice Process ◽  
Criminal Justice Process ◽  
The One

Abstract Amid pressure to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the International Criminal Court (ICC), work has progressed on the development of a set of performance indicators for the ICC. This article argues that performance indicators play into tensions that underpin the international criminal justice process at the ICC, in particular between expeditiousness, on the one hand, and fairness and victim satisfaction, on the other. It argues that while the ICC’s performance indicators extend assessment of the ICC beyond the speedy completion of cases and embrace goals of fairness and victim access to justice, they inevitably support the former to the detriment of the latter, with implications for the Court’s identity. While acknowledging the benefits of performance indicators for the ICC, the article outlines several measures to counter the risks that they pose for the balance between these goals.

scholarly journals Tilting at windmills: Reparations and the International Criminal Court

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Luke Moffett ◽  
Clara Sandoval
Keyword(s):  
Transitional Justice ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
International Crimes

Abstract More than 20 years on from the signing of the Rome Statute, delivering victim-centred justice through reparations has been fraught with legal and practical challenges. The Court’s jurisprudence on reparations only began to emerge from 2012 and struggles to find purchase on implementation on the ground. In its first few cases of Lubanga, Katanga, and Al Mahdi the eligibility and forms of reparations have been limited to certain victims, subject to years of litigation, and faced difficulties in delivery due to ongoing insecurity. This is perhaps felt most acutely in the Bemba case, where more than 5,000 victims of murder, rape and pillage were waiting for redress, and the defendant was not indigent, but where he was later acquitted on appeal, thereby extinguishing reparation proceedings. This article critically appraises the jurisprudence and practice of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on reparations. It looks at competing principles and rationales for reparations at the Court in light of comparative practice in international human rights law and transitional justice processes to consider what is needed to ensure that the ICC is able to deliver on its reparations mandate. An underpinning argument is that reparations at the ICC cannot be seen in isolation from other reparation practices in the states where the Court operates. Reparative complementarity for victims of international crimes is essential to maximize the positive impact that the fulfilment of this right can have on victims and not to sacrifice the legitimacy of the Court, nor quixotically strive for the impossible.

Current Trends in the Definition of ‘Perpetrator’ by the International Criminal Court: From the Decision on the Confirmation of Charges in the Lubanga case to the Katanga judgment

2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 349-371 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALICIA GIL GIL ◽  
ELENA MACULAN
Keyword(s):  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Critical Elements ◽  
Current Trends ◽  
The One ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Individual Criminal Responsibility

AbstractThe jurisprudence of the International Criminal Court (ICC) up to the Lubanga judgment showed definite interpretive trends on the modes of principal liability. This article aims first to make a critical assessment of these trends by focusing on methodological and substantive aspects. On the one hand, the practice of having resort to theories derived from Continental legal systems, albeit legitimate, is based on a methodology that raises some concerns as to the selection and (mis)interpretation of such theories. On the other hand, the Court has clearly adopted a wide interpretation of some critical elements in which the different modes of principal liability are grounded. This choice has caused a significant expansion of the scope of principal liability as well as a breach of the principles of legality and of individual criminal responsibility. In our opinion, the underpinning of these interpretations is a flawed understanding of the criteria for distinguishing between principals and accessories.This perspective has been overturned by the Katanga judgment, on which the second part of this article will focus. This judgment correctly argues that the distinction between perpetrators and accomplices is grounded only on the autonomous or vicarious character of their contribution to the offence. Furthermore, it follows a partly different approach as to both the methodology and the interpretation of the constitutive elements of principal liability. In our view, this approach better fits both the relevant statutory provision and the basic principles of criminal law.

Part 6 The Trial: Le Procès, Art.69 Evidence/Preuve

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Schabas William A
Keyword(s):  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Significant Degree ◽  
Trial Chamber ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Probative Value ◽  
The One ◽  
Assessment Of Evidence ◽  
General Provision

This chapter comments on Article 69 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Article 69 deals with specific evidentiary issues but lacks a general provision like the one in the Nuremberg Charter. This is addressed in article 64, stating that the Trial Chamber has the power to rule on the admissibility or reliability of evidence. According to a Trial Chamber, ‘the drafters of the Statute framework have clearly and deliberately avoided proscribing certain categories or types of evidence, a step which would have limited — at the outset — the ability of the Chamber to assess evidence “freely”’. Chambers enjoy ‘a significant degree of discretion in considering all types of evidence’. Another judge has said that article 69 provides for ‘the principle of free assessment of evidence. Hence, it is up to the competent Chamber to decide on the probative value of any piece of evidence introduced for the purpose of the confirmation hearing or the trial’.

Beyond ‘African Solutions to African Problems’ at the Extraordinary African Chambers and ‘Distant Justice’ at the International Criminal Court

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thijs B Bouwknegt
Keyword(s):  
Transitional Justice ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Court System ◽  
Head Of State ◽  
Congo Free State ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Cold Case ◽  
Passive Object

Abstract The trial of Chad’s former President Hissène Habré in 2015 was heartily anticipated and then heralded as an ‘African solution to African problems’. In myriad ways, the Extraordinary African Chambers (EAC) in Senegal’s court system indeed picketed a momentous transitional justice experience. It was simultaneously international, regional and local. It applied the universal jurisdiction principle. It judged a former and foreign head of state. It dealt with a ‘cold case’ from the Cold War. This was unprecedented in Africa and elsewhere. Crucially, the Habré trial departed from a ‘distant’, alienating trend of symbolic justice for African atrocities promised by the International Criminal Court (ICC). In Dakar, justice was pursued, performed and profited by those indirectly and directly victimized by the accused, while the passionate courtroom dynamics were palatably and transparently broadcasted. Notwithstanding these topical novelties, this article traces a more complex, more remote, and at times forgotten genealogy of transitional justice in Africa. By historicizing, contextualizing and exemplifying the Habré trial in light of unseen precedents from, inter alia, Congo Free State, Namibia, Equatorial Guinea and Ethiopia, it seeks to add historical layers of complexity to portrayals of Africa as passive object in the evolution of international criminal justice.

The International Criminal Court Statute and the Failure to Mention Symbolic Reparation

2009 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frédéric Mégret
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Symbolic Forms ◽  
International Instruments ◽  
Rights Issue ◽  
Do So

The International Criminal Court (ICC)'s reparations regime seems very geared towards material reparation such as restitution, compensation and rehabilitation. However, a growing number of international instruments, particularly in the human rights field, anticipate that more symbolic forms of reparation such as satisfaction and non-repetition are mandatory. The article explores what reasons may have led the ICC drafters to not at least mention symbolic reparation and finds that, apart from a possible trend towards commodification of reparation in general, the perception was probably that only states can grant symbolic reparation, and that ordering individuals to do so might raise human rights problems. None of these arguments are conclusive. Individuals can provide symbolic reparation, and this could be encouraged rather than ordered to avoid the human rights issue. More importantly, the role of the ICC and the Victims Trust Fund will be to use money as reparation, and nothing will prevent them from using awards so made for symbolic purposes. In fact, strong principle and policy arguments militate in favor of granting a larger role to symbolic reparation in the ICC context, thus helping to make the Court into more of an institution of transitional justice.

Transitional justice and the International Criminal Court – in “the interests of justice”?

2007 ◽  
Vol 89 (867) ◽  
pp. 691-718 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dražan Đukić
Keyword(s):  
Transitional Justice ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Radical Change ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Prosecutorial Discretion ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Treaty Interpretation

AbstractTransitional justice encompasses a number of mechanisms that seek to allow post-conflict societies to deal with past atrocities in circumstances of radical change. However, two of these mechanisms – truth commissions and criminal processes – might clash if the former are combined with amnesties. This article examines the possibility of employing the Rome Statute's Article 53 so as to allow these two mechanisms to operate in a complementary manner. It considers three arguments – an interpretation of Article 53 in accordance with the relevant rules on treaty interpretation, states' obligations to prosecute certain crimes and the Rome Statute's approach to prosecutorial discretion – and concludes that Article 53 is ill-suited to accommodate truth commissions in conjunction with amnesties.

scholarly journals Change of Guard

2001 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan M. Amaya-Castro ◽  
Thomas Skouteris
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Dispute Settlement ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Tribunals ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The One ◽  
Innovation And Change ◽  
Dramatic Growth

Dr René Lefeber stayed at the helm of the Leiden Journal of International Law as its Editor-in-Chief for more than four important years (1996–2000), marked by innovation and change in practically every aspect of the Journal. Barely two years after a profound re-organization, the Journal's volume was doubled with three issues per year in 1997, and four issues in 1998. Meanwhile, the number of pages, the quality, and the diversity of published material saw dramatic growth. The section on Hague International Tribunals became a standard feature; a sub-section on the International Criminal Court was set up in 1998 to regularly cover ongoing developments in this important institution; an annual specialized bibliography on dispute settlement was introduced; and regular Editorial notes by members of the Board figured in each issue. All in all, a very different Journal than the one handed down four years earlier.

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