Legal Regulation of Armed Conflicts, Transnational Offending and Penal Justice Systems in Africa

Africa has borne a heavy share of the world's armed conflicts and of the grave crimes that accompany them, and it has also been a laboratory for the institutions that seek to hold the perpetrators to account. This article examines the legal regulation of armed conflicts, transnational offending and penal justice systems in Africa. It sets out the concepts of armed conflict, international crime and transnational offending, and the three levels, national, regional and international, at which accountability is pursued. It examines the legal framework, comprising international humanitarian law under the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols, international criminal law under the Rome Statute and the Genocide Convention, the African instruments including the Constitutive Act of the African Union and the Malabo Protocol, and the Ugandan framework under the International Criminal Court Act Cap 14, the Penal Code Act Cap 128 and the Amnesty Act Cap 294. Through a body of case law, including Prosecutor v Tadic, Prosecutor v Akayesu, Prosecutor v Lubanga, Prosecutor v Ongwen, Uganda v Kwoyelo and the Habre case, it analyses how these systems have operated in practice. The article argues that, while the normative framework is now substantial, its effectiveness is undermined by weak domestication, the immunity and co-operation problems that beset both the International Criminal Court and the proposed African Court, and the unresolved tension between accountability and reconciliation, and it recommends stronger domestication, the reconsideration of regional immunity, and the careful framing of amnesties to exclude international crimes.