Workshop:

SUB SAHARAN AFRICA AND THE INSTITUTIONALISATION
OF INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL LAW

The workshop "Sub-Saharan Africa and the Institutionalisation of International Criminal Law" is part of a broader Conference on "Conflicts and Conflict Resolution in Societies of Sub-Saharan Africa – Between the Local and the Global". The overall aim of the workshop is to foster a cross-cultural understanding about the role of international criminal justice in addressing violent conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa and support the ratification of the ICC Statute in the region.

The ratification of the ICC Statute in Sub-Saharan Africa and it's the active participation of the region in the emerging international criminal justice system is of major importance because criminal law in response to violent conflicts, in the region specifically, plays a particular prominent role in the institutionalisation of international criminal justice, such as the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and of the Special Court for Sierra Leone. Moreover, all cases referred to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court since the Rome Statute entered into force in 2002 involve Sub-Saharan countries.

However, in spite of the prominent role in the process of the institutionalisation of international criminal justice, Africa's active contribution to this process remains marginal. Besides the obvious political reason of the notorious lack of African influence at the international level, two main factors explain Africa's marginal role in this process: the origin of the current international criminal justice model and the lack of knowledge about African experiences in coping with violent conflicts.

As already in the case of the ICTR, the work of the ICC in fighting impunity is accompanied by a mix of traditional and modern institutions and procedures in response to atrocities, that co-exist at all levels of justice. These institutions and procedures are not only used in response to past atrocities but also in ongoing conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa. Within the context of the ICC, it is imperative to study these mechanisms with a view to improving its operation in the fight against impunity and to support the ratification of its Statute in the region.

The scientific aim of the workshop is to close a gap in the state of the art on the role of Sub-Saharan Africa in the institutionalisation of international criminal justice. It will contribute to the knowledge about the different aspects in the institutionalisation of international criminal law and the interrelations between International Criminal Law, State-administered criminal justice and forms of local justice practices in coping with the violence in Sub-Saharan Africa. It will foster a cross-cultural understanding about the role of criminal justice in addressing violent conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa and provide a stimulus for exploring potential new research directions on the role of International criminal justice in the design of post-conflict management strategies for Sub-Saharan Africa. In doing so, the workshop aims to bring an African perspective into the hitherto Western-dominated process of academic reflection about the institutionalisation of international criminal justice. To achieve these goals, the workshop intends to integrate and co-ordinate participants from the region and International researchers in a joint conference programme. One of the reasons why the African researchers picked up the topic of the workshop is because the issue came up during a conference previously held in the year 2005 in Arusha/Tanzania as an aspect that needs to be politically and scientifically explored. During the Arusha Conference the main focus was laid on the use of customary procedures in dispute prevention and resolution in Sub-Saharan Africa. The main outcomes of the Conference were two points:

First, that Sub-Saharan Africa provides a unique constellation of State-administered systems of criminal justice and forms of local justice practices which must be taken into account by a holistic approach when addressing atrocities in the region. Within the context of Sub-Saharan Africa, numerous forms of local justice practices are used to cope with the violence of large-scale conflicts.

Second, the lack of an African perspective in the current international criminal justice model of State-administered criminal justice poses serious practical challenges in the application of this model to conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa. The application of the current international criminal justice model to conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa has been opposed on the ground that it obstructs social peace by ignoring local justice practices.

Against this backdrop, the workshop will foster a cross-cultural understanding of the role of international criminal justice in addressing violent conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa. Additionally it will provide a stimulus for exploring potential new directions on the role of international criminal justice in the design of post-conflict management strategies for Sub-Saharan Africa and the fight against impunity.

The papers of the participants of the workshop will be published in the research series of the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal at Duncker & Humblot, Berlin.