Strengthening Protection and Support for Victims of Terrorism in Criminal Proceedings in Afghanistan

Abstract

Afghanistan faces significant challenges as it seeks to emerge from thirty years of civil war and insurgent violence and promote lasting peace and security. Terrorist incidents, which have increased dramatically since 2004, continue to pose a major threat to security, destabilizing governance and fracturing state initiatives to guarantee rule of law to citizens. An urgent priority for the government, as part of its development of counterterrorism policy, is to ensure that the formal criminal justice system responds effectively to the threat of terrorism by creating mechanisms and procedures that support the rights and needs of victims in accordance with international human rights standards. To date, examining victimhood in Afghanistan and accurately understanding the assistance and support that victims of terrorism receive and to which they are entitled during criminal justice processes have avoided academic scrutiny. Informed by empirical evidence and qualitative interviews with justice officials in Afghanistan, this article aims to fill this important gap in scholarship. It does so by drawing on an international framework for good practices outlined in the Global Counterterrorism Forum’s Madrid Memorandum to shed new light on gaps in existing national law. In doing so, it makes important recommendations for both institutional and legislative reform designed to strengthen protections and assistance for victims of terrorism and inform contemporary reviews of criminal procedural law being undertaken by justice ministries in Afghanistan.