Kiyani, Asad and Reynolds, John and Xavier, Sujith (2015) Third World Approaches to International Criminal Law. American Journal of International Law, 109. pp. 255-259.

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Abstract

A pattern of affording impunity to local power brokers throughout Africa pervades the application of international criminal law (ICL) in Africa. The International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation into Uganda is a notorious but representative example, although similar analyses can be made of the Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Libya. In Uganda, only members of the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have been indicted for international crimes, even though the United Nations, international human rights groups, and local NGOs have documented years of abuses perpetrated by government troops and local auxiliary units, often against the same populations victimized by the LRA. The ICC is thereby implicated in the power structures and political arrangements of a repressive state that both combats the LRA and often brutalizes the civilian populations of northern Uganda. Inserting itself into Uganda, the ICC becomes a partisan player in the endgame of a civil war that extends back over a generation, and is itself rooted in ethnic and tribal animosities cultivated through 19th century Euro-colonial benedictions of favor. Here, the ICC and the war it adjudicates become surprising bedfellows, repurposed by local elites for the consolidation of domestic power.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	Third World Approaches; International Criminal Law;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Law
Item ID:	11757
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1017/S2398772300001550
Depositing User:	John Reynolds
Date Deposited:	20 Nov 2019 14:39
Journal or Publication Title:	American Journal of International Law
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	Publisher
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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