No Peace Without Justice was invited to attend the meeting entitled Traditional Justice and Reconciliation after Violent Conflict: Learning from African Experiences organised by International IDEA with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Belgium, on 6 February 2008.
The report was introduced by Luc Huyse, the IDEA Project Lead Researcher, who explained that the report focussed on measuring the successes or benchmarks of the traditional mechanisms utilised in the above-mentioned countries, considering the legitimacy and effectiveness of such mechanisms. The aim was to develop realistic views and to attempt to get rid of myths surrounding traditional justice mechanism. The case studies revealed that in some cases, the results of the traditional justice mechanisms are in fact successful at both rehabilitation and reconciliation and in providing accountability to victims and within communities as a whole. In other cases, there are still many obstacles and challenges; it was considered necessary to consider how to blend strategies based on what has been successful and what has not, to consider how strategies inter-relate and how the international community can be involved in addressing these issues. The next steps are to analyse the results, to learn from the different experiences, and to formulate conclusions and recommendations on how to ensure justice is both done and seen to be done.
The case-studies presented during the meeting were on Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo (the latter was not even a case-study so it was not clear why such a significant portion of the meeting was allocated to this presentation). Nevertheless, the presentation on Mozambique was interesting, discussing the use of the Magamba spirit as a method for traditional justice. There was some debate during the plenary session on whether this method should be considered a justice mechanism; some people were of the view that the ritual conducted with the Magamba spirit may certainly assist reconciliation and healing but that it was not strictly a justice mechanism in the broader sense of the term.
The presentation of the DRC could be described as a country-profile of the DRC with many interesting statistics on the population, geography, local languages and other facts though there was little, if any, mention of traditional justice mechanisms apart from indicating that the populations are ready and willing to receive justice in any form, be it traditional or some other alternative justice mechanism. Unfortunately the meeting, which was only scheduled for one day, did not allocate sufficient time for discussion on the other case studies.
The recommendations and conclusions of the report were presented by Mark Salter, Senior Programme Officer of International IDEA, and were categorised as general rules, recommendations to local stakeholders, to international stakeholders, to the United Nations and other international institutions and to donor countries and international NGOs. The recommendations and conclusions suggested the following though the list is not exhaustive:
General Rule
- Tradition-based mechanisms and practices adopted as part of a national transitional justice strategy should complement official judicial structures as opposed to being brought under state control; that sufficient time and energy should be devoted to careful, contextualised assessment of how to blend different state and non-state justice and reconciliation strategies; make local ownership of policies and strategies the rule.
Local Stakeholders
- Intensify efforts to enhance awareness and understanding of the role of traditional justice and reconciliation mechanisms among international agencies in general, and human rights NGOs in particular; develop an outreach strategy that aims to restore the authority and integrity that traditional leaders and or traditional justice and reconciliation mechanisms may have lost among their local communities during the course of the conflict.
- Develop an outreach strategy that aims to help restore the authority and integrity that traditional leaders and/or traditional justice and reconciliation mechanisms may have lost among their local communities during the course of the conflict.
International stakeholders
- Be aware of the specific political, cultural and historical forces at work in a transitional society; accept that a process of post-conflict recovery must be locally ‘owned’ in the first instance; and be sensitive to such issues as the appropriate timing and tempo of external interventions intended to support such processes.
To the United Nations and other international institutions
- Consider the establishment of an international panel of experts tasked with clarifying (a) in general, how traditional justice and reconciliation mechanisms can be better recognised under international law insofar as they contribute to implementation of the right to the truth, the duty to prosecute and the right to reparation; and b) more particularly, how the notion of ‘interests of justice’ as defined in the ICC Statute can accommodate this important contribution to the international pursuit of truth, justice and reconciliation.
To donor countries and international NGOs
- Collect information regarding the actual and potential impact of traditional justice and reconciliation mechanisms that will enable both a minimal cost-benefit analysis and funding decisions based on criteria of comparative effectiveness and legitimacy.
- Provide financial and logistical support to the efforts of post-conflict countries to increase the actual strengths of indigenous justice and reconciliation practices and to overcome their present shortcomings and weaknesses.
The publication, Traditional Justice and Reconciliation after Violent Conflict, Learning from African Experiences, is divided into chapters on each of the case-studies considering first the conflict, then the traditional mechanisms currently employed followed by analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats and finally conclusions and recommendations. It may prove interesting to read and consider in relation to the Global Report that NPWJ is producing on bridging the impunity gap.
