Africa and the Future of International Criminal Justice

This collection examines the critical issues concerning Africa as a place where international criminal accountability mechanisms have played, and continue to play, a prominent role in the efforts to deal with and to tackle impunity for atrocity crimes. It looks at Africa's importance to international criminal justice as exemplified by the activities of international criminal accountability mechanisms, such as the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and the International Criminal Court (ICC). The book discusses the contentions about whether Africa is particularly targeted for international justice accountability experiments, as well as the politics of international criminal justice. International politics continue to shape Africa's relationship with international justice mechanisms and initiatives, as demonstrated by the recent concerns of the African Union about the activities of the ICC in Africa. It clarifies that the ICC - as a permanent global international criminal accountability mechanism - needs Africa and that Africa needs the ICC for full and effective realization of the normative prescriptions of the Rome Statute in Africa. In this regard, the book places the complementarity principle of the Rome Statute at the center, to enable Africa to take credible ownership of justice for atrocity crimes on the continent.