Double Victimization? Using a Human Security Framework to Assess the Effectiveness of the Witness Protection Regime in Kenya

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper argues that a witness-protection architecture in which indictees remain in charge of government is ineffective and undermines the Rome Statute’s complementarity principle. In Kenya’s cases before the International Criminal Court (ICC), inadequate protection of witnesses and their extended families discouraged witness participation and affected the availability of evidence. It is argued here that assessing the ICC’s effectiveness should be based on a critical examination of the processes the ICC set in place to defend the security of witnesses. A number of high-profile cases are examined through a human security framework to demonstrate the inadequacy of the witness protection regime in the wake of interference with witnesses and lack of cooperation with the Court.