Beyond ‘African Solutions to African Problems’ at the Extraordinary African Chambers and ‘Distant Justice’ at the International Criminal Court

Abstract

Abstract The trial of Chad’s former President Hissène Habré in 2015 was heartily anticipated and then heralded as an ‘African solution to African problems’. In myriad ways, the Extraordinary African Chambers (EAC) in Senegal’s court system indeed picketed a momentous transitional justice experience. It was simultaneously international, regional and local. It applied the universal jurisdiction principle. It judged a former and foreign head of state. It dealt with a ‘cold case’ from the Cold War. This was unprecedented in Africa and elsewhere. Crucially, the Habré trial departed from a ‘distant’, alienating trend of symbolic justice for African atrocities promised by the International Criminal Court (ICC). In Dakar, justice was pursued, performed and profited by those indirectly and directly victimized by the accused, while the passionate courtroom dynamics were palatably and transparently broadcasted. Notwithstanding these topical novelties, this article traces a more complex, more remote, and at times forgotten genealogy of transitional justice in Africa. By historicizing, contextualizing and exemplifying the Habré trial in light of unseen precedents from, inter alia, Congo Free State, Namibia, Equatorial Guinea and Ethiopia, it seeks to add historical layers of complexity to portrayals of Africa as passive object in the evolution of international criminal justice.