Africa

World Bank Inspection Panel applies gender-sensitive analysis in report on Nachtigal Power Project in Cameroon

/ Tequila J. Brooks / Leave a comment

My recent commentary in the International Labor Rights Case Law Journal focuses on the September 2022 report issued by the World Bank Inspection Panel in response to complaints made by local community groups about harm caused by the Nachtigal Power Project and Sanaga River Technical Assistance Project. The commentary is accompanied by text excerpted for the Inspection Panel’s report.

The case arose out of the damming of the Sanaga River to create a hydroelectric power plant. The Inspection Panel’s report stands out because of the Panel’s holistic review of the harms caused by the Nachtigal Power Project, its application of a gender sensitive analysis to the facts outlined in the complaint and uncovered during the Panel’s on-site visit, and the Panel’s validation of the harms alleged by the community members. On November 4, 2022, the parties agreed to dispute resolution under the auspices of the World Bank accountability mechanism. The collaborative dispute resolution process commenced in December 2022. If the parties are unable to come to an acceptable resolution, the case will proceed to the formal investigatory process.

The report in the Nachtigal Power Project case is one of a new generation of reports issued by the World Bank Inspection Panel after the World Bank reformed its accountability mechanism in 2020. The reforms strengthened rules governing the social effects of World Bank-funded projects. In December 2022, the World Bank Accountability Mechanism Secretary issued updated operating procedures for the accountability mechanism.

In its report on the Nachtigal Power Project, the Inspection Panel drew a complex picture of intertwining environmental, social, and workplace harms affecting the local community. Short- and long-term impacts of damming the river affected fish populations, which in turn affecting the ability of fisherfolk to earn a living, which in turn affected the resources available to families to keep children and young people in school and university, which in turn had a deleterious effect on the local community in the form of increased crime, domestic violence, and prostitution.

By applying a gender sensitive analysis to the facts detailed in the complaint and uncovered during its on-site review, the Inspection Panel was able to shed light on how the project had affected women – and how women were excluded from livelihood restoration and other plans adopted to mitigate the harms of the project. Women in the community tended to earn their livelihoods from informal tasks like fish mongering and operating restaurants that catered to fishermen and sand miners. The informality of their means of making a living served as a barrier to women’s participation in livelihood programs. A gendered focus highlighting informal businesses is also beneficial to men who operate informal businesses in agriculture and sand mining. The Inspection Panel also noted that sexual harassment of women seeking work at the power plant was another barrier to the restoration of livelihoods lost as a result of the Nachtigal Power Project.

Importantly, the Inspection Panel affirmed the credibility of the complainants and community members – and uncovered additional facts showing that project mitigation plans had not been effective in restoring livelihoods and mitigating against the harms caused by the hydropower project.

As a financier of the project with the ability to withdraw or stop funding, the World Bank has a considerable amount of leverage at its disposal to persuade project management to effectively address issues raised by complainants. It remains to be seen whether community members, project representatives, financiers, and policy makers at the national and international levels will be able to develop solutions that match the complex and intertwining harms caused by the project. Regardless of the outcome, the report in the Nachtigal Power Project case is an example of how international institutions can effectively apply a gender sensitive analysis to reveal and hopefully address adverse impacts of globalization and development not only on women, but on men as well.

Please reach out to me privately to request a copy of my commentary.

Tanzania Withdraws Jurisdiction from the African Court. What recourse remains for Tanzanians?

/ Nathalie Greenfield & Gabriela Markolovic / Leave a comment
(photo credit)

On November 21, 2019, Tanzania withdrew from Article 34(6) of the African Charter’s Protocol: the provision by which States accept the competence of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights to receive cases from individuals and NGOs. Tanzania is only the second State—after Rwanda—to withdraw from Article 34(6). When Rwanda made its Article 34(6) withdrawal in 2016, the African Court mandated a notice period of one year for withdrawals and declared that the withdrawal would have no legal effect on cases pending before the Court.

Applying the Rwandan precedent to Tanzania’s withdrawal suggests that Tanzanians can only continue to file before the Court until the one-year notice period expires, on November 20, 2020. This change is significant, as individuals comprise the overwhelming majority of applications to the African Court.

Despite the closure of this important avenue for Tanzanians seeking remedies for human rights violations, there are other avenues through which Tanzanians can bring their claims. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the UN Treaty Bodies provide two such avenues.

A. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights

The African Commission is a quasi-judicial body tasked with the interpretation of the African Charter. Distinct from the African Court, the Commission can hear complaints against States Parties to the African Charter, including Tanzania.

The Commission presents a viable alternative to filing with the Court in several ways. By turning to the Commission, Tanzanian applicants can continue to build jurisprudence in the African continent and pursue Tanzania’s compliance with its human rights obligations under the African Charter. Successful petitions enshrine human rights norms in Tanzania, as well as in all States Parties to the African Charter, and applicants can secure reparations for the harms they have suffered.

Additionally, the Commission has shown interest in ruling on human rights claims in Tanzania, despite Tanzania’s withdrawal. On November 22, 2019, just a day after Tanzania’s withdrawal, the Commission published a statement to Tanzania strongly urging its government to guarantee a range of public freedoms and to protect human rights activists. Tanzania’s withdrawal may only serve to heighten the Commission’s interest in the State’s human rights compliance.

Although the Commission can begin to fill the gap left by Tanzania’s withdrawal for individuals who have suffered human rights abuses, it is not a replacement for the Court. First, the Commission faces a severe backlog in cases: in June 2019, the Commission had 240 cases pending. If Tanzanians seek redress before the Commission in the same numbers as they did before the Court, they can expect to see prolonged delays in having their petitions heard.

Second, Tanzanian applicants may not always see favourable decisions from the Commission enforced at state level. Tanzania is required to submit biannual reports to the African Commission on its human rights compliance, but Tanzania has only submitted two such reports: one in 1992 and another in 2008. Because of this lack of data, as well as the minimal formal policy guiding these state-reporting measures, it is difficult for the Commission to monitor whether Tanzania is implementing its decisions and recommendations. Moreover, Tanzania does not appear to have enforced the one decision on the merits that the Commission decided against Tanzania.

Despite these complications, the African Commission can fill some of the gap that Tanzania’s withdrawal from the African Court will leave post-November.

B. UN Human Rights Bodies

The UN Treaty Bodies can also hear human rights claims against Tanzania.

Two of the UN Treaty Bodies have jurisdiction over Individual Complaints filed against Tanzania: the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW Committee) and the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD Committee). Tanzania ratified the Optional Protocol to the CEDAW in 2006 and the Optional Protocol to the CRPD in 2009, thus recognising the competence of both bodies to consider communications against Tanzania.  

Where claims allege a violation of either the CEDAW or the CRPD, Tanzanians may consider bringing an Individual Complaint to CEDAW or CRPD Committees, respectively. Though the Treaty Bodies present a wholly different forum for complaints than the regional human rights tribunals of the African Court and Commission, they go a long way to filling the gap left by Tanzania’s withdrawal.

The longevity and strength of the UN Treaty Bodies lends their judgments gravity and impact. Jurisprudence from both the CEDAW and CRPD Committees shines a light on, and seeks to remedy, human rights violations the world over. Tanzanian lawyers and activists bringing complaints before these Committees can use the international respect and clout of these bodies to their advantage, to build awareness of human rights issues in Tanzania and to support their in-country efforts.

Importantly, Tanzania generally complies with its administrative obligations under both the CEDAW and CRPD by submitting its periodic reports. Neither Committee has heard many Individual Complaints against Tanzania, though, which makes analysing the likelihood of their enforcement difficult. The CEDAW Committee has heard one Individual Complaint against Tanzania, following which Tanzania implemented some—but not all—of the Committee’s recommendations. The CRPD Committee has heard two complaints against Tanzania, with similarly mixed results. Though Tanzania’s limited track record on enforcement may raise questions about the utility of bringing claims to the Treaty Bodies after November 2020, it does not diminish the utility of the UN as way forward for Tanzanians who have suffered human rights abuses.

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From November 20, 2020, Tanzanian individuals and NGOs will be deprived of an important avenue through which to bring human rights claims. It is clear, though, that Tanzania’s withdrawal does not doom all human rights claims against the state. Individuals and NGOs must turn to alternative forums to fill the gap left by Tanzania’s withdrawal.

Meanwhile, international groups should recognise the critical work being done by domestic advocates to raise awareness of these changes within Tanzania.

How the 2020 Guinean Elections Might Impact Justice for the 28 September 2009 Massacre. (Part 2)

/ Morgane Greco / Leave a comment

This blogpost is the continuation of “How the 2020 Guinean Elections Might Impact Justice for the 28 September 2009 Massacre. (Part 1)“, posted yesterday morning.

3. Civil society member Asmaou Diallo expressed skepticism about the eventuality of a trial in June 2020

Asmaou Diallo, a Guinean civil society member who lost her son in the 28 September 2009 Massacre, has been working tirelessly since 5 October 2009 with her local association “Association des Victimes, Parents et Amis du 28 Septembre” to achieve justice. She explained that victims need medical and psychological treatment: many raped women at the stadium have contracted HIV and other life-threatening diseases, and a lot of victims also cruelly lack the necessary support to heal from this traumatic experience. 

Considering the current national political agenda, Ms. Diallo expressed doubts that a trial in 2020 would effectively deliver justice to victims. In the past, Guinea has consistently been falling into cycles of violence and impunity, and since October 2019, violence in the streets has increased. Further, as President Alpha Condé wants to amend the Constitution to stay in power, Ms. Diallo fears that another 28 September massacre might occur.

In Ms. Diallo’s view, the trial will not take place in 2020. Since accused officials continue to hold positions of power and victims remain unprotected, she argued that the government most likely will hinder any possibility for justice to be delivered. 

4. Franco Matillana, from the ICC OTP, expressed trust towards the Guinean justice system

Last but not least, Franco Matillana outlined the ongoing ICC proceedings with respect to the situation in Guinea. As mentioned above, the OTP opened a preliminary examination more than 10 years ago, in October 2009. In its 2019 Report on Preliminary Examination Activities, the OTP concluded that there was a reasonable basis to believe that crimes against humanity pursuant to article 7 of the Rome Statute had been committed in the national stadium on 28 September 2009 and in the immediate aftermath. More precisely, it mentioned murder under article 7(1)(a), imprisonment or other severe deprivation of liberty under article 7(1)(e), torture under article 7(1)(f), rape and other forms of sexual violence under article 7(1)(g), persecution under article 7(1)(h), and enforced disappearance of persons under article 7(1)(i).

Currently, the preliminary examination is at phase 3, which means that the OTP is assessing the admissibility of this situation, notably in the light of the complementarity principle. This principle entails that national authorities are primarily responsible of delivering justice at the national level (article 1 of the Rome Statute). That said, even though the perspective of a trial in June 2020 means that many steps have yet to be completed within a short period of time, including the construction of the new courtroom in Conakry and the training of the magistrates, Franco Matillana expressed trust towards the Guinean authorities. According to him, a real and genuine cooperation exists between the ICC and Guinean national authorities. Mr. Matillana reminded that setting and announcing publicly a precise date for the trial is a good sign, as it showcases the commitment of the Guinean government to deliver justice. 

5. Concluding remarks 

            Justice and accountability for the 28 September Massacre are far from certain. The perspectives shared by all panelists at the side event suggest that the decisions and actions taken by Guinean authorities are likely to have a decisive impact on the foreseeable future. It must be emphasized that the Guinean presidential elections’ agenda is concerning: Guineans do not want the current President Alpha Condé to amend the Constitution to allow him to run for a 3rd term, and civil society groups are regularly demonstrating in the streets. In this context, Ms. Diallo’s fear of another 28 September Massacre seem well-founded. In any case, the fight for justice for the 28 September Massacre should not be side-tracked by the upcoming elections. It is a high time for the international community to wake up and take concrete action to pressure the Guinean government to ensure justice and accountability for victims of international crimes in Guinea.

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This blogpost and the author’s attendance to the 18th Assembly of States Parties to the International Criminal Court are supported by the Canadian Partnership for International Justice and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

How the 2020 Guinean Elections Might Impact Justice for the 28 September 2009 Massacre. (Part 1)

/ Morgane Greco / Leave a comment

On the third day of the 18th Assembly of States Parties (ASP) to the International Criminal Court (ICC), held in The Hague from 2 to 7 December 2019, a side event named “Guinea: A decade after, victims of the 2019 massacre are still waiting for justice” took place. It was co-organized by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the Guinean civil society organizations Organisation guinéenne de défense des droits de l’homme et du citoyen, Mêmes droits pour tous and the Association des victimes, parents et amis du 11 septembre 2009. Moderated by Delphine Carlens, Head of the International Justice section at FIDH, the event featured panelists Drissa Traoré, FIDH Under-Secretary; Asmaou Diallo, President of the Association of Victims, Parents and Friends of the September 28 Massacre; and Franco Matillana, from the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor (OTP). As panelists shared their views on the prospects for justice for the September 2009 Massacre in Guinea, this blog post will elaborate on the key aspects of this enriching discussion. Specifically, it will summarize the context of the September 2009 Massacre, before turning to explore the ongoing judicial proceedings within the Guinean domestic legal system, victims’ perceptions of these proceedings, and the ongoing ICC preliminary examination.

Flyer of the event co-organized by the FIDH and Guinean civil society organizations, held in The Hague on 4 December 2019. 

1. What happened in Guinea on 28 September 2009?

On 14 October 2009, the ICC OTP announced the opening of a preliminary examination with respect to the situation in Guinea. It stated that this “preliminary examination focusses on alleged Rome Statute crimes committed in the context of the 28 September 2009 events at the Conakry stadium.” As Guinea is a State Party to the Rome Statute, having deposited its instrument of ratification on 14 July 2003, the OTP announced that it would investigate international crimes committed on the territory of Guinea or by Guinean nationals from 1 October 2003 onwards (Rome Statute, article 11). 

 The contextual background of the September 2009 Massacre is described in the subsequent OTP Reports on Preliminary Examination Activities (see e.g the 2019 report here). In December 2008, after the death of President Lansana Conté, who had ruled Guinea since 1984, Captain Moussa Dadis Camara seized power in a military coup. As the new head of State, he established a military junta, the Conseil national pour la démocratie et le développement (CNDD, orNational Council for Democracy and Development), and promised that this body would ensure that power is handed to a civilian president following presidential and parliamentary elections. However, as time went by, Captain Camara’s attitude and statements seemed to suggest that he might actually run for president, which led to protests by its political opponents and civil society groups. 

On 28 September 2009, the Independence Day of Guinea, an opposition group gathering at the national stadium in Conakry was violently repressed by national security forces. According to Human Rights Watch, they opened fire on civilians that were peacefully calling for transparent elections. Some civilians were shot, beaten, and even raped in daylight. According to the OTP’s 2019 Report on Preliminary Examination Activities, more than 150 people died or disappeared, at least 109 women were victims of rape and other forms of sexual violence, including sexual mutilations and sexual slavery, and more than 1000 persons were injured. Cases of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment during arrests, arbitrary detentions, and attacks against civilians based on their perceived ethnic or political affiliation are also mentioned in the 2019 OTP Report.

Ten years after the massacre, are Guinean victims any closer to see their tormentors be held accountable? One after the other, panelists at the ASP side event shared their points of view. 

Une des entrées du Stade du 28-Septembre, à Conakry, en Guinée.
Le Monde

2. Drissa Traoré, FIDH Under-Secretary, depicted the judicial landscape and pointed key issues

At the ASP side event, FIDH Under-Secretary Drissa Traoré critically depicted the ongoing judicial proceedings taking place within the Guinean domestic legal system with respect to the 28 September massacre. In February 2010, the case was referred by Guinean Prosecutors to a group of magistrates, before whom it progressed slowly amid political, financial, and logistical obstacles. Despite being charged, many senior officials remained in office. During the investigation, judges have heard the testimony of 450 victims and their their family members. The judicial process was still ongoing when, in 2018, the Minister of Justice Cheick Sako set up a steering committee tasked with the practical organization of the trial. Conakry’s Court of Appeal was identified as the final location for the trial. However, Minister Sako resigned from his position as Minister of Justice in May 2019, causing further delays in the organization of the trial.

In 2019, the newly appointed Minister of Justice, Mohamed Lamine Fofana, decided to reform the steering committee: even though this committee was supposed to meet once a week, in practice, it had met only intermittently. Mr. Fofana also announced that the trial would take place in June 2020, and the government decided to build a new courtroom for this trial to be held. Drissa Traoré stressed that the construction of this courtroom could be a pretext to delay the trial once again. At the time of the ASP, in December 2019, the construction had not begun, and the judges presiding over the trial had yet to be appointed and trained for a such a trial. 

To Drissa Traoré, it is imperative that the charged civil servants who remain in office be dismissed from their positions before the beginning of the trial. He also emphasized the necessity for victims and witnesses to be protected from and any undue pressure that could be exerted against them. 

Mr. Traoré also highlighted that the sociopolitical context in Guinea is currently strained. Guinean presidential elections will take place in 2020, and demonstrations are regularly taking place, accompanied by daily arrests and deaths. To Mr. Traoré, it is crucial that this trial takes place, as it would send a message that impunity for grave crimes is not tolerated in Guinea. 

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You can read the second part of the blogpost here:  How the 2020 Guinean Elections Might Impact Justice for the 28 September 2009 Massacre. (Part 2)

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This blogpost and the author’s attendance to the 18th Assembly of States Parties to the International Criminal Court are supported by the Canadian Partnership for International Justice and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Safeguarding women after disasters: some progress, but not enough

/ Kristin Bergtora Sandvik / Leave a comment

Hundreds of Mozambicans were killed and thousands made homelessrecently by Cyclones Idai and Kenneth. Almost immediately, there were reports of a sadly familiar story: women being forced to trade sex for food by local community leaders distributing aid.

Globally, international organisations appear to be grappling with the issue more seriously than before. Yet reports about sexual exploitation keep coming. How does the aid community strategise to protect women’s safety in disaster situations?

Over the past 15 years, I have done research on sexual exploitation of displaced women in Uganda and Colombia. I have also worked with a variety of humanitarian organisations on accountability and legalisation. Through this, I have identified the factors necessary to bring justice to the victims of predatory aid workers.

Sexual exploitation must be recognised as a real and widespread problem. There must be staff and management accountability. Transgressions must be sanctioned through disciplinary or penal measures. But there are also major dilemmas that need to be understood and tackled by governments, agencies and, most importantly, local communities.

Sexual exploitation in aid

The sexual exploitation of disaster and conflict victims is a global – and longstanding – phenomenon. Over the last 25 years, there have been radical changes in the standards of global public morality around the conduct of personnel working for international organisations and NGOs when vulnerable adults and children are involved.

Nevertheless, the willingness to see sexual exploitation as an inherent feature of the international community’s intervention to bring development, humanitarian aid or peace has been much slower to evolve.

It was only 24 years ago that UNHCR issued guidelines on sexual violence and refugees that expressly mentioned international refugee workers as being implicated in sexual violence against refugees.

The sexual abuse of vulnerable women and girls in several African countries by international aid workers was recently described as “endemic”. It was also noted that perpetrators easily moved around the sector undetected.

Several recent cases have been reported from Cote d’ivore, to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Namibia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan and the Central African Republic.

These have involved aid workers and peacekeepers, as well as local aid workers and government employees.

In my research on refugees, accusations concerning “sex for resettlement” registration surface regularly. I found these to be frequent while working on refugee resettlement in Kampala 15 years ago. Despite the UNHCR’s promise to reform, similar accusations keep resurfacing, most recently in Kenya. The time has come for the international community to seriously debate the power mechanisms embedded in the resettlement process that enable sexual exploitation to fester.

What will fix the problem?

The first step is to organise accountability.

Humanitarian accountability first emerged as a concern in the 1980s. It was institutionalised in the 1994 Code of Conduct for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and NGOs in Disaster Relief . The 1996 Joint Evaluation of Emergency Assistance to Rwanda was a defining moment.

That report resulted in several sector-wide initiatives. Five years ago efforts were made to streamline these in the revised Core Humanitarian Standards.

Throughout this period, sexual exploitation has been considered the worst possible behaviour humanitarian workers can be guilty of. But it has not been clear what constitutes exploitation and in which relationships it takes place. The lack of a definition, the unwillingness to articulate and enforce robust norms for professional behaviour and the absence of effective complaint mechanisms and protections for whistle-blowers have contributed to a culture of impunity for predatory behaviour against aid recipients.

Early policy responses to sexual exploitation were concerned with reputational issues. But over the past 15 years the humanitarian sector has seen a flurry of institutional initiatives to grapple with this specific issue. The effort to prevent sexual exploitation and abuse is led by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee.

The aid sector is now engaging in “safeguarding exercises”. These emerged after the Oxfam scandal in Haiti. The organisation was seen as failing to act on sexual misconduct by staff in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake, and then to have attempted a cover-up.

Safeguarding includes all actions by aid actors to protect staff from harm (abuse, sexual harassment and violence) and to ensure staff do not harm beneficiaries.

This broad definition represents both a welcome recognition of the scope of the problem and an opportunity for a comprehensive approach. But it also creates some new challenges. Three are particularly worth noting.

The challenges

Who gets a voice: There has been vocal concern about the lack of inclusiveness in how safeguarding is practised. Critics have noted that a safeguarding industry was hatched with little attention to local and national context or participation. There is a view that safeguarding is yet another Western-centric practice. I think this critique is true. But it also creates a dilemma: should global norms about sexual exploitation in international aid be up for local negotiation?

Regulation and criminalisation. In recent years, there have been calls to regulate foreign aid actors more robustly. This is understandable. Aid actors have operated with a great deal of license and even impunity under the humanitarian banner. But drawing up new laws also creates problems. This is particularly true in a context where African civil society generally is under pressure from new restrictive laws that curtail their activities.

Responding to the call to “do something”, the international community has embraced criminalisation and criminal prosecutions to promote and strengthen the fight against impunity. But opting for criminal law and the courtroom rests on a deeply simplistic framing of structural power imbalances in aid. Legal strategies are costly and slow. The focus on sexual violence in disasters and conflicts also risks crowding out concern for other aspects of women’s lives.

Localisation: Since 2016 there has been a significant focus on the localisation of aid. The Charter for Change focuses on contracting, resource allocation, transparency and communication. It highlights the importance of not undermining local capacity. The process is generally painfully slow and a shockingly small percentage of international aid funding is actually allocated to local actors.

At the same time, there is a persistent call for international actors to do, control and know more about what goes on locally to limit corruption, incompetence and abuse. This call comes partly from media in donor states addressing taxpayers, but also from watchdogs within the sector.

This is also the case for sexual exploitation. In its report, Human Rights Watch demands that “international partners, particularly the UN, should ensure greater oversight of the conduct of local officials during the distribution of humanitarian aid”. This will not come for free.

The question is how a balance can be found between control and localisation – and who gets to determine what this balance should be.

This post was originally published at https://theconversation.com/safeguarding-women-after-disasters-some-progress-but-not-enough-116619. For an extended critical commentary on the rapid rise of the Safeguarding concept in the aid sector, see https://jhumanitarianaction.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s41018-019-0051-1

The ICC and Côte d’Ivoire: Is Justice Being Dispatched?

/ Claire Morris / Leave a comment

In December 2010, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, then Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), warned protagonists of the post-election crisis in Côte d’Ivoire that “[t]hose leaders who are planning violence will end up in The Hague.” In November 2011, Laurent Gbagbo arrived in The Hague, his transfer to the ICC seen as diffusing tensions after his arrest in April by forces loyal to the internationally recognized winner Alassane Ouattara. Gbagbo was joined by his Minister of Youth, Charles Blé Goudé, in 2014. Having fled to Ghana, Blé Goudé was extradited to Côte d’Ivoire, which sent him to the ICC. At the time, Côte d’Ivoire was not party to the Rome Statute but the country accepted the ICC’s jurisdiction through an Article 12 (3) declaration, reconfirmed in 2010.

Yet, by the time the trial commenced in January 2016, the Ivorian justice system was functioning. Ouattara declared no more Ivorians would be sent to the ICC, insisting on trying Simone Gbagbo at home despite losing an admissibility challenge before the Pre-Trial Chamber, upheld by the Appeals Chamber.

The acquittal of Laurent Gbagbo and Blé Goudé in the ruling on no case to answer of 15 January 2019 spotlights the OTP’s investigation in the Côte d’Ivoire situation. As a written decision is forthcoming, this article will not examine the trial. Rather, it looks at the perception of the ICC at the local level and how it compares to and impacts national justice processes. 

During my research in Côte d’Ivoire, I had the privilege to interview Ivorians from different parts of the country, including victims, witnesses, judges, prosecutors, defense counsel and civil society. Views about the ICC and domestic accountability efforts are polarized. Some strongly support the ICC and maintain high expectations that may now be impossible to meet, while others are adamant Ivorians should be tried by Ivorians, however imperfect the justice.

For many, the ICC has lost credibility. Those who followed the Gbagbo and Blé Goudé trial share concerns as to how it was conducted, from procedural changes, to the OTP’s witnesses turning hostile, suffering memory loss or providing hearsay evidence with low probative weight. Further, the OTP’s sequenced approach­––necessary for securing state co-operation given the limitations of the Part 9 regime––with as yet no public arrest warrants released against supporters of Ouattara who are also suspected of committing crimes during the crisis, has increased the perception of the Court as an instrument for victor’s justice. This credibility deficit has weakened its impact. Early positive developments included domestication of the Rome Statute, with the incorporation of crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide into the Ivorian Penal Code in 2015. However, as public perception decreased, related reforms important for local accountability efforts stalled, in particular, a law on witness protection; fortunately, it was passed by the National Assembly in early 2018 but is still to enter into force.

Unfortunately, there has been inadequate reverse co-operation, with requests to the ICC for the exchange of evidence to facilitate domestic investigations substantively unanswered. Further, Côte d’Ivoire lacks technical capacity for DNA and ballistics analysis, with resource limitations among the factors delaying further exhumations. While the OTP has lent some assistance, it would be mutually beneficial to go further. Domestic inquiries are also hampered by witness fatigue, with some witnesses reluctant to co-operate with a Special Investigation Unit (CSEI) after already giving testimony to the ICC and other domestic transitional justice mechanisms previously operating in parallel, including the National Commission of Inquiry (CNE), Commission for Dialogue, Truth and Reconciliation (CDVR), and National Commission for Reconciliation and Reparation of Victims (CONARIV). Other ICC witnesses declined to testify in local trials to avoid media exposure.

Continue reading →

Carrots, Sticks, and the ICC: Prospects for Cooperation? Part 2

/ Sarah P Nimigan / Leave a comment

The contributions discussed in part one may be used to frame an analysis of the Court’s recent request to Belarus to cooperate in the arrest and surrender of al-Bashir. The ICC has issued two arrest warrants for al-Bashir, one in 2009 and one in 2010, for alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Since the arrest warrants were issued, al-Bashir typically travels to non-states parties, who are under no obligation to arrest him. Indeed, Belarus has neither signed nor ratified the Rome Statute. However, he has also visited states partieswho do have an obligation to arrest, including (but not limited to) Chad, Kenya, Djibouti, Malawi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Jordan, Uganda, and South Africa. Despite the Court’s request to these states parties for cooperationin the arrest of al-Bashir, national governments such as those of Chad, Jordan, and South Africa have refused to comply, using the justification that al-Bashir’s status as head of state provides him with immunity from arrest. This opinion is also promoted by the African Union, which has asked for an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on the issue of immunities of heads of state and government within the Rome Statute system.  

The relations between Belarus and Sudan are strengthening in several key areas. Al-Bashir and Belarus’ President, Alexander Lukashenko, signed agreements on ‘friendly relations and cooperation’in 2017 emphasizing dynamic trade and joint projects in the industrial and agricultural sectors. Al-Bashir’s speculated travel to Belarus is for the purpose of finalizing trade deals and enhancing bilateral relations. However, the link between the two countries is long(er)standing. Belarus is a Sudanese armament provider. In 2006, a military cooperation protocolwas signed by the two countries covering training, exchange of experiences, and military science. Belarus has a reputation as an arms exporter to rogue states. Since Belarus is under no legal obligation to cooperate with the ICC, the arrest and surrender of al-Bashir highly unlikely. The high probability that Belarus will ignore the Prosecutor’s request contributes to a culture of impunity and staunch criticism of the Court.  

Inasmuch as states pursue political and economic (self) interests, the UNSC expressed a need for accountability for the atrocious crimes committed in Darfur under the leadership of President Omar al-Bashir at the ICC. The majority of states agree that the gravity of the crimes covered by the Rome Statute are so abhorrent that they are an offence to humankind and should not go unpunished. It is necessary to question the elusiveness of state cooperation in the situation concerning al-Bashir and consider what can be done to facilitate a different, more just outcome. Relying on Belarus is insufficient without the political backing of the UNSC to oblige all member states to enforce their referral and facilitate cooperation by all states to this end.   

Political strategizing for the majority of states requires a balance of hard and soft power; this includes the promotion of international criminal justice and the use of international institutions, which creates a sense of solidarity among Member States. Expectations of behaviour establish trust. The rules-based order in the Rome Statute system contributes to a shared commitment to these goals. The referral of the situation in Sudan to the ICC by the UNSC signals that the perpetration of atrocious crimes is unacceptable, even for states who have neither signed nor ratified the Rome Statute. Appeals to sovereign power, interests, or status as a head of state are irrelevant. This could be a significant moment for the international criminal justice project, but the transfer of political power (UNSC) to legal action (ICC) has been weak and haphazard. The lack of organizational support and state cooperation to see justice done devalues international criminal law and subjects the ICC to a serious legitimacy crisis.  

The lack of credible commitment on the part of the UNSC to enforce this referral, or to provide the necessary political support has undermined (and continues to undermine) the ICC’s ability to see justice done. The UNSC has failed to take measures against states who choose not to execute the arrest warrant, which ought to be an obligation that emanates from the referral itself. The need for the UNSC to take a bigger role in the enforcement of its own resolutions remains an important focal point in the discussion on cooperation more broadly.  

The obsequious attention paid to al-Bashir and his disregard for the indictment by the ICC has led to increasing frustration on the part of those who oppose impunity and demand justice and accountability for the victims in Sudan. The role of civil society is particularly important in this regard. Depending on states such as Belarus to cooperate with the execution of an arrest warrant in the absence of political or legal obligations is fundamentally flawed. How persuasive is a sharp carrot when the states involved have the stick? 

This blogpost and my attendance to the 17thAssembly of States Parties are supported by the Canadian Partnership for International Justice and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Call for abstracts

/ Anette Bringedal Houge / Leave a comment

STUDYING WAR CRIMES:

The ethics of re-presenting mass violence in research

When do descriptions of harm become academic sensationalism rather than re-presentations of violent materialities? Can academic interest and engagement in mass harm ever avoid voyeurism? How can sensational violence be ethically re-presented in research? Across disciplines theorizing mass harm, a consensus is emerging cautioning against sensationalism in re-presentations of perpetrators, victims, crimes, and sufferings, seeing detailed descriptions of violence as academic voyeurism. Yet, how comfortable a read can research that has violent profusion at its core become, before the distance created by language becomes an ethical – and analytical – challenge in its own right?

This edited volume invites experienced scholars to address thoroughly the ethics of doing research on mass harm in general, and of re-presenting and describing mass violence, harmdoing, trauma, and suffering in their own research in particular. Drawing on a range of methodological approaches and empirical cases, the book will address how mass violence and war crimes are brought into research – both as an ethical, a sensational, and an analytical matter.

We ask contributors to reflect on their re-presentations of mass crimes, violence and justice, seeing re-presentations both as an issue to do with individual and disciplinary research ethics but also as a matter to do with power and material structures of academic knowledge production. The purpose is to encourage active engagement with a research ethics that goes beyond ‘procedural ethic;’ to expand the discussion on responsibility for the stories we hear, read, analyze, and re-tell; and to address in-depth the ethics of listening, seeing, and telling in research on mass violence and war crimes.

The book will be relevant for all researchers who wish to engage ethically with the study of mass violence and war crimes.

We invite abstracts that explore the ethics of re-presenting mass violence in research.

Abstracts may also cater specifically to:

  • The ethics of caring, seeing, listening and re-presenting
  • Selection and exclusion: whose stories are told?
  • Understanding harm/understanding as harm
  • “Thick descriptions” and sensationalism
  • Breaking the silence vs silence as choice
  • Emotions, positionality, and reflexivity

Submission guidelines:

Abstract of no more than 500 words to be submitted by November 30th, 2018 to editors at studyingwarcrimes@gmail.com. We only accept original contributions and the abstract needs to clearly demonstrate the chapter’s contribution to the volume.

Please include a 150-200 word bio highlighting your affiliation, work experience and credentials in the field of war and mass violence research.

Further process:

After an initial screening and by December 15th, 2018, editors will invite 8 contributors to develop their abstract into a full chapter (5-7000 words) to be submitted by April 15th 2019. We will apply for funding for a lunch-to-lunch workshop for contributors in May 2019. The final submission date for full chapters will be in August, 2019.

Routledge (Taylor&Francis Group) initiated our work with this collection, and has expressed a strong interest in publishing the book.

About the editors:

Sladjana Lazic is a post-doctoral researcher at the Center for Peace Studies (CPS) at the Arctic University of Norway (UiT). She holds a PhD in Political Science from the Norwegian University for Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway, on victims’ perspectives on transitional justice and legitimacy.

Anette Bringedal Houge holds a PhD in Criminology and Sociology of Law from the University of Oslo on conflict-related sexual violence, perpetrator re-presentations, and international criminal justice. She has published her research in e.g., Aggression and Violent Behavior, British Journal of Criminology and Criminology and Criminal Justice. Anette is the Head of Humanitarian Needs and Analysis at the Norwegian Red Cross.

Feminism and the Kenyan TJRC (Part 2)

/ Ronald Slye / Leave a comment

Picture2

Women singing at the launch of the TJRC public hearings in Garissa (April 2011)               (Kenyan TJRC)

Addressing the first feminist critique – the failure to address systemic and structural violence that tends to affect women disproportionately – was easier for us to address compared to other truth commissions given our broad mandate and, in particular, the requirement that we investigate violations of socioeconomic rights. To better analyze systemic and structural issues, including those related to socio-economic rights, we needed to address effectively the second critique – the failure to encourage active participation of women, a failure that had already been experienced by the Mutua Task Force.

 

In addition to dedicating specific parts of our statement-taking form to capturing the experience of women; training our statement takers on gender sensitivity, and ensuring a high percentage of female statement takers (43 percent), we also conducted thirty-nine of what we called women’s hearings in each of the places where we held public hearings. Our challenge was not just to encourage women to participate and speak to the Commission, but also to elicit testimony about violations and related issues experienced by them. The experience of previous truth commissions suggests that women who are willing to speak about past violations tend to speak as witnesses and observers concerning incidents that happened to others, usually the male members of their family. The characterization of such testimony as indirect is itself problematic, as it tends to de-emphasize the secondary effects of violations on family members and community members and more fundamentally emphasize the individualistic, rather than community-oriented, aspect of violations. While women may testify about what happened to others in their family or community because they are reluctant to testify about themselves, they may also focus on violations directly experienced by their family and community members because they see themselves as part of those larger social entities and, thus, are more likely than men to see such violations of “others” as affecting them, their families, and their communities directly. Nevertheless, we were concerned that some women might feel reluctant to share their own direct experiences of violations out of fear rather than because they adopted a more holistic approach to violations and their effects.

In addition to holding women’s hearings in each place where we held public hearings, we often had a prominent woman activist from each community testify about the experience of women generally in that community. We were able to do this in part because of the strong working relationship we had developed with Maendeleo ya Wanawake, the largest women’s membership organization in Kenya. We were thus able to explore at the local level some of the broader systemic, institutional, and cultural issues faced by women. To further broaden this analysis, we devoted one of our national thematic hearings to women. The purpose of the thematic hearing was to supplement the individual stories we had heard in the field – both from witnesses as well as local activists – with a more national and even international perspective on the broader systemic issues facing women in Kenya. Continue reading →

Feminism and the Kenyan TJRC (Part 1)

/ Ronald Slye / Leave a comment

Picture1

Commissioners Tecla Namachanja and Margaret Shava at the launch of public hearings in Garissa (April 2011)       (Kenyan TJRC)

In 2004 a task force chaired by Professor Makau Mutua travelled throughout Kenya to determine whether a truth commission should be established to address historical injustices.  In their report, the task force observed that while their provincial hearings were “on the whole” well attended, the number of women participating in the hearings was “low.” The experience of the Mutua task force mirrored that of truth commissions generally. Female participation in truth commission processes worldwide has been low, leading more recent truth commissions to create special units to encourage the participation of more women. Kimberly Theidon discusses attempts to incorporate a greater gender sensitivity to transitional justice processes, focusing in particular on Peru.

 

Christine Bell and Catherine O’Rourke pose three sets of questions as part of a feminist critique of transitional justice generally.  First, where are women (both representation and participation in transitional justice design and process)? Second, Where is gender (where are the voices and experiences of women with respect to conflict, human rights violations and justice)? Third, where is feminism (referring to the feminist critique of justice and its applicability to transitional justice)?

Feminist critiques of truth commissions tend to focus on two issues. First, truth commissions ignore or do not devote sufficient attention to systemic, structural, and institutional violence that tends to affect women disproportionately. Second, truth commissions are not designed to encourage the participation of women, and thus perpetuate the silencing of women in those societies.

The drafters of the Kenyan legislation establishing the Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission were sensitive to these critiques, requiring that there be gender balance among the commissioners (we began with five male and four female commissioners); requiring that the chair and vice chair be of opposite gender; including sexual- and gender-based violence in the violations we were to investigate, and suggesting that we put into place special mechanisms and procedures to address the experiences of women. During most of our operational period, our CEO was a woman; and during the fourteen months when we conducted most of our external activities (statement taking, public hearings, investigations, and other outreach activities), our acting chair was a woman – in fact Tecla Namachanja Wanjala was the first woman to serve as the chair of a truth commission. Continue reading →