Sequencing peace and justice in post-conflict Africa: The ICC perspective

This chapter discusses the extent to which there is any conflict or harm in the ICC Prosecutor’s involvement in cases undergoing mediation by the international community, most of which are currently in Africa. The ICC Prosecutor’s discretion, as per the Court’s Statute, to hold a prosecution in abeyance in anticipation of the outcomes of mediating efforts which aim at ending a conflict is at best ambivalent. Recent practice suggests that stakeholders engaged in ending long-running African conflicts prefer the Prosecutor to decline to exercise jurisdiction in order to encourage the parties to reach some agreement. For obvious reasons, discussions on such matters are often held confidentially and not in the context of official debates. The African experience with the peace-justice nexus shows that the peace-versus-justice debate has not been resolved in favour of any camp.