The ruling of the African Extraordinary Chamber of Appeal in the Habré case is a resounding precedent, particularly in the area of reparations for victims of serious violations of international law. This article focuses on the process of identifying victims or beneficiaries of reparations and the reasons that led judges to favor compensation as a form of reparation. Moreover, the modalities for the implementation of reparations awarded are of paramount importance since, in the absence of effective remedies, the interest of the procedure would be considerably diminished. The implementation of reparations will certainly be the ultimate battle of the victims. Funding for the Trust Fund for Victims (FPV) is still expected. The Fund is expected to play a key role in implementing reparations for victims, the final judgment in this case is already an important precedent. Not only does it contribute to the consolidation of some advances in international criminal law in the field of restorative justice, but it also symbolizes Africa’s ability to prosecute and try the most serious international crimes committed in the region. |
Search result: 41 articles
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Article |
Le jugement de Hissène HabréUne justice réparatrice exemplaire? |
Journal | African Journal of International Criminal Justice, Issue 1-2 2017 |
Keywords | Restorative justice / justice réparatrice, victim / victime, reparation / réparation, Trust Fund for Victims / Fonds au profit des victimes, compensation / indemnisation |
Authors | Etienne Kentsa |
AbstractAuthor's information |
Legal Documents |
Arrêt Le Procureur General c. Hissein HabréChambre Africaine Extraordinaire d’Assises d’Appel |
Journal | African Journal of International Criminal Justice, Issue 1-2 2017 |
The Extraordinary African Chambers (CAE) within the courts of Senegal were created by the Agreement between the Republic of Senegal and the African Union of 22 August 2012 to prosecute international crimes committed in Chad between 7 June 1982 and 1 December 1990. The Chambers are governed by a Statute. For those cases not provided for in the Statute, the Chambers shall apply Senegalese law. Both laws, one of international or conventional nature and the other one national, could be applied to a trial in compliance with international standards. However, the Statute has priority over Senegalese legislation. It is indeed the Statute that is asked to settle all questions that may arise and that has made specific selective references and for any other point that it could not have foreseen. |
Article |
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Journal | African Journal of International Criminal Justice, Issue 1-2 2017 |
Keywords | International criminal law, joint criminal enterprise, complicity, Chambres Africaines Extraordinaires / Extraordinary African Chambers, hybrid tribunals |
Authors | Kerstin Bree Carlson |
AbstractAuthor's information |
The Chambres Africaines Extraordinaires (CAE), ad hoc chambers operating under the auspices of the Dakar municipal courts, were constructed to try Hissène Habré. In targeting Habré, the CAE was designed to appease Chadian calls for justice (from Habré’s victims, on one hand, and the Déby regime, on the other), resolve Senegal’s impasse over the legality of Habré’s culpability and allow the African Union to meet its leadership obligations. To this tall order, the CAE was required to exercise legitimate judicial authority in the contested sphere of international criminal law (ICL), where content is pluralist and political. |
Article |
An Epochal Bifurcation: The International Criminal Court, the African Court and the Struggle against Gross Human Rights Abuses |
Journal | African Journal of International Criminal Justice, Issue 1-2 2016 |
Keywords | ICC, African Court, gross human rights abuses, transitional justice, human rights |
Authors | Ato Kwamena Onoma |
AbstractAuthor's information |
Focus on whether a criminal chamber in a reformed African Court represents progress or retrogression relative to advances made in the Rome Statute shifts attention from the similar foundation of the two courts on an epochal bifurcation between the worst human rights abuses and quotidian wrongs. This bifurcation compromises our understanding of how abuses are related, what we should do about them and how we should go about studying them. It is at the core of aspects of the International Criminal Court (ICC) that have come under severe criticism. It also imperils the criminal chamber of the nascent African Court. |
Article |
The Prosecution of Corporations before a Hybrid International Criminal TribunalThe New TV and Akhbar Beirut Contempt Jurisdiction Decisions of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon |
Journal | African Journal of International Criminal Justice, Issue 1-2 2016 |
Keywords | Special Tribunal for Lebanon, international criminal law, personal jurisdiction, corporate criminal liability, interpretation of Rules of Procedure and Evidence |
Authors | Manuel J. Ventura |
AbstractAuthor's information |
This case note considers two decisions from two separate Appeals Panels of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (“STL”) which held that the STL possessed the inherent power, pursuant to its inherent jurisdiction in matters relating to contempt, to exert its ratione personae jurisdiction over legal persons – two Lebanese corporations – accused of contemptuous conduct. These decisions opened the door for the first trials of corporate defendants in the history of international criminal law. The analyses of the Appeals Panels are pertinent to unresolved debates before United States (“US”) courts on whether the US Alien Tort Statute recognizes corporate liability for violations of the law of nations; raise the issue of the proper place of the principle of legality when jurisdictional questions arise as well as the proper interpretation of the STL’s Rules of Procedure and Evidence; and also have implications for other international criminal tribunals with provisions regulating contempt of court that are similarly worded to those in place at the STL. |
Editorial |
Editorial |
Journal | African Journal of International Criminal Justice, Issue 1-2 2016 |
Miscellaneous |
Résumé de l’arrêt en appel du 27 avril 2017 dans l’affaire Procureur général contre Hissein HabréChambre Africaine Extraordinaire d’Assises d’Appel |
Journal | African Journal of International Criminal Justice, Issue 1-2 2016 |
Article |
The International Criminal Court and AfricaContextualizing the Anti-ICC Narrative |
Journal | African Journal of International Criminal Justice, Issue 1-2 2016 |
Keywords | International Criminal Court (ICC), security, African Union (AU), war crimes, international law |
Authors | Brendon J. Cannon, Dominic R. Pkalya and Bosire Maragia |
AbstractAuthor's information |
This article critiques attempts by some in Africa to brand the International Criminal Court (ICC) as a neocolonial institution and stooge of the West. These arguments accuse the ICC of playing a double standard, being overly focused on trying African defendants, and warn that the Court risks exacerbating factionalism and ethnic divisions thereby threatening peace and reconciliation efforts. Although we neither defend nor champion the ICC’s mandate, we deem such criticisms as hyperbole. At best, they attempt to whitewash the instrumental role played by African states in the birth of the Court and ignore the fact that many of the ICC cases were referred there by African governments. Furthermore, the current African narrative understates the ICC’s potential to midwife local judiciaries and contribute positively towards conflict resolution in Africa through the promotion of at least a measure of accountability and offers of justice, thereby taming elite immunity and impunity in states where justice regimes are either weak or non-existent. Until African states strengthen their judiciaries to ensure such references to the ICC are indeed a last resort, the Court will continue to remain the only credible forum for states emerging from conflict and seeking justice and reconciliation. |
Article |
The Fight against Corruption in Sierra LeoneChallenges and Opportunities in the Jurisprudence |
Journal | African Journal of International Criminal Justice, Issue 1-2 2016 |
Keywords | Accountability, corruption, judicial approach, jurisprudence, reforms |
Authors | Michael Imran Kanu |
AbstractAuthor's information |
The fight against corruption in Sierra Leone gained momentum, at least in terms of policy direction, following the enactment of the Anti-Corruption Act 2000 and the Amendment Act in 2008. It is considered to be one of the most robust anti-graft laws in the world and its promulgation is in recognition of the international and national resolve to fight the menace, owing to its devastating effects, especially in the Least Developed Countries (LCDs) of the world. The Anti-Corruption Act of 2000, though viewed as a tremendous move towards curtailing corruption, was riddled with shortcomings. Practitioners viewed the Act as limited in the number of proscribed offences created, coupled with the lack of independence signified by the absence of prosecutorial powers. With the enactment of the Amendment Act in 2008, it is crucial to examine the opportunities it has created to eradicate corruption. Critical also to the national and global resolve is the consideration of challenges that may have sprouted. This paper will examine some of the opportunities and challenges in the jurisprudence in the fight against corruption in Sierra Leone, with the aim of providing an avenue for reflection as well as a prompter for legislative reforms or change in judicial approach. |
Article |
The Kenyan Cases and the Future of the International Criminal Court’s Prosecutorial Policies |
Journal | African Journal of International Criminal Justice, Issue 2 2015 |
Keywords | International Criminal Court, proprio motu, prosecutorial discretion |
Authors | Simeon P. Sungi |
AbstractAuthor's information |
The Kenyan Situation pending before the International Criminal Court (ICC) is the first situation in which the prosecutor exercised his power to initiate cases “proprio motu” under Article 15 of the Rome Statute. In the wake of the comments from the former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno-Ocampo, that there was political interference from foreign diplomats during the investigation stage of the cases, it is prudent to re-examine the standards provided under the Rome Statute regarding prosecutorial discretion and evaluate the prosecutorial power and how the Kenyan cases may shape this discretionary power in order to align it with the Preamble of the Rome Statute. The Preamble affirms that the most serious crimes of concern to the international community must not go unpunished. Further, that their effective prosecution must be ensured for the purposes of ending impunity for the perpetrators of international crimes and thus to contribute to the prevention of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes of aggression. |
Article |
Accountability for Forced Displacement in Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda before the International Criminal Court |
Journal | African Journal of International Criminal Justice, Issue 2 2015 |
Keywords | Forced displacement, International Criminal Court, Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, reparations |
Authors | Luke Moffett |
AbstractAuthor's information |
This article examines the challenges of investigating and prosecuting forced displacement in the Central African countries of Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, where higher loss of life was caused by forced displacement, than by any other. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, armed groups intentionally attacked civilian populations displacing them from their homes, to cut them off from food and medical supplies. In Northern Uganda, the government engaged in a forced displacement policy as part of its counter-insurgency against the Lord’s Resistance Army, driving the civilian population into “protected villages”, where at one point the weekly death toll was over 1,000 in these camps. This article critically evaluates how criminal responsibility can be established for forced displacement and alternative approaches to accountability through reparations. |
Article |
Addressing Impunity for Serious Crimes: The Imperative for Domesticating the Rome Statute of the ICC in Nigeria |
Journal | African Journal of International Criminal Justice, Issue 2 2015 |
Keywords | Accountability, conflict, crimes, justice system |
Authors | Stanley Ibe |
AbstractAuthor's information |
Over the last decade, Nigeria has witnessed several high-intensity conflicts. It became a country under preliminary investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) following allegations of serious crimes. In 2013, the boko haram insurgency was classified as a “non-international armed conflict.” Commentators appear divided over the capacity and willingness of domestic institutions to manage crimes arising from or connected with conflicts in Nigeria. Those who argue for unwillingness often point to the struggle to domesticate the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Rome Statute) as one of the clearest indication that there is not sufficient interest. This article interrogates the question of seeming impunity for serious crimes in Nigeria and makes a case for domesticating the Rome Statute through an amendment to the Crimes against Humanity, War Crimes, Genocide and Related Offences Bill, 2012 pending before the National Assembly. |
Article |
The Court Is the Political Arena: Performance and Political Narratives at the International Criminal Court |
Journal | African Journal of International Criminal Justice, Issue 2 2015 |
Keywords | Côte d’Ivoire, Laurent Gbagbo, trial, performance, narratives |
Authors | Oumar Ba |
AbstractAuthor's information |
This article explores the politics of international criminal justice and argues that the International Criminal Court is a lieu of staged performance where actors deploy their political narratives. Using the Situation in the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire before the ICC and focusing on the pre-trial phase, I contend that the defendants Laurent Gbagbo and Charles Blé Goudé project a performance and deploy political narratives that are the extension of the politics of the Ivorian crisis, which make the Court the quintessential arena where domestic and international politics cohabit with law and rules of procedure. |