'Using the old to deal with the new' – Interview with James Latigo, Director of the North Uganda Peace Initiative, outlining the challenges to international justice norms posed by the dynamics of the Ugandan peace process.
A key question facing countries emerging from civil conflict is how best to deal with the perpetrators of past – and in many cases, all too recent – violence, while at the same time maintaining the fragile social harmony that often characterizes post-conflict societies. Should priority be given to bringing the perpetrators of past human rights violations to justice, thereby combating the culture of impunity that has come to characterize many civil conflicts? Or is it more important to start by focusing on measures designed to ensure that peace and stability - and with them the prospects for a country’s longer-term recovery - are bolstered?
In Africa in particular, one undervalued conflict management resource lies in the sphere of traditional social mechanisms. A recently-launched International IDEA project titled ‘Reconciliation and Traditional Justice: Learning From African Experiences’, funded by the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, aims to rectify this gap by examining the role played by local/traditional justice mechanisms (TJMs) in addressing the legacy of large-scale, violent conflict in countries across the African continent. A core component of the project is a set of country specific case studies on the role and functioning of TJMs in six countries - Sierra Leone, Liberia, Uganda, Mozambique, Burundi and Rwanda.
At a workshop held in late September 2006 and hosted by International IDEA’s regional Africa office in Pretoria, prospective country case study authors and a small group of invited experts and practitioners gathered to discuss critical issues in focus in the IDEA project, as well as map out a common approach to undertaking the specific country case studies in prospect.
In one of the project’s focus countries – Uganda – controversy surrounding the respective roles of locally and internationally based justice systems is currently focused around the impact of indictments issued by the Rome-based International Criminal Court (ICC) against the leadership of the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) on the country’s fragile peace process. In an interview conducted after the Pretoria workshop Uganda country case study author James Latigo outlined the challenges to international justice norms posed by the dynamics of the Ugandan peace process.
Contact: Mark Salter, Senior Programme Officer
Discuss
Tell a friend
