The International Criminal Court’s Impact on Peacebuilding in Africa

Abstract

This chapter examines the International Criminal Court (ICC) and its intersections with two widespread domestic conflict resolution processes in Africa: national amnesties and peace negotiations. In doing so, it connects to two overarching scholarly and policy debates, namely the appropriateness and legality of amnesties as opposed to prosecutions for suspected perpetrators of international crimes, and the “peace versus justice” debate over whether the threat of prosecution imperils peace negotiations that involve high-level atrocity suspects. This chapter focuses on the ICC’s first two-and therefore most developed-situations in northern Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), with secondary reference to Rwanda, South Sudan, and other conflict-affected states in Africa. The chapter concludes with some lessons from the ICC’s interventions for recrafting international criminal justice in support of the wider pursuit of peace.