Profielpagina Universiteit Utrecht

Since the end of world war two, wars have increasingly been waged within states instead of between states. Such internal wars have characteristically been fought with the active and widespread involvement of the civilian population. Herein, identity and identity groups have become crucial mobilizing factors. This poses profound challenges at war’s end for such antagonistic communities to find once again a way to co-habit and coexist in their national territory. This requires erstwhile warring parties to address the injustices that have taken place, while also moving towards a relationship that they believe to be minimally acceptable. The recent proliferation of transitional justice instruments, such as Truth and Reconciliation Commissions and the International Criminal Court (ICC), attest to the widespread recognition of the crucial nexus between justice, reconciliation and sustainable peace.However, unfortunately the booming growth of this transitional justice and reconciliation industry has outpaced a careful development of empirically based theory and analysis on what reconciliation entails and how different transitional justice instruments contribute to this process.

Using the case study of northern Uganda, this collaborative research, proposed by experts within the field of conflict studies and international law, aims to fill the empirical and theoretical knowledge gap that exist within and between the field of transitional justice and reconciliation. To this end, the following central research question is posed; How do different types of local, national and international transitional justice instruments relate to each other and are they an effective. 

To contribute to this central research objective, the CCS will focus its expertise on answering the following question: What war constructed social identity boundaries exist within northern Uganda that need to be addressed for reconciliation to occur? What traditional instruments are already being utilized by the grass-roots society to address these boundaries? What retributive vs. restorative justice instruments are being implemented at a local, national and international level and what are their objectives and tools? Do these instruments build on the existing traditional instruments and are they an effective and legitimate mechanism towards reconciliation? What general lessons can be learned and applied to other (post) conflict settings?

Answers will be sought through literature research and conducting grass-roots research in northern Uganda. Building on data already collected during previous fieldwork, methods such as direct observation, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions will be utilized to gain a local perspective on the effectiveness and legitimacy of different transitional justice instruments, including the ICC, a national Truth Telling Commission and Traditional Justice Instruments.

ISEP in conjunction with the research programme Human Rights in a World of Conflict and Diversity Perspective will concentrate on the following question: how could international and national justice mechanisms most effectively contribute to societal reconciliation and the entrenchment of the rule of law in a victimized society as Uganda’s? To that end, it will be ascertained (a) whether international and domestic criminal tribunals somehow believe that criminal justice and accountability solutions can meaningfully contribute to national reconciliation in Uganda, and whether they decide cases accordingly; (b) whether justice for gross human rights violations/international crimes should be dispensed at the domestic (Ugandan) level, or rather at the international level (ICC, or even by a ‘bystander State’ exercising universal jurisdiction for that matter), in accordance with the principle of complementarity as enshrined in Article 17 of the ICC Statute. To that effect, the ICC’s relevant admissibility decisions will be thoroughly analyzed in light of relevant on-going and planned investigations and prosecutions in Uganda. In addition, interviews will be conducted with staff of the ICC Office of the Prosecutor in The Hague on the one hand, and Ugandan prosecutors on the other, with a view to seeking answers to the questions (a) how the ICC could best encourage local investigations in Uganda (in keeping with the principle of ‘positive complementarity’), (b) what cases should still be dealt with at the international level, (c) whether the broader impact of retributive justice solutions is taken into account in the design and implementation of those solutions; (d) how the interplay with non-penal transitional justice systems in Uganda is conceived