Posts tagged ‘Kenya’
On Kenya and State-funded Defences of ICC Accused
Recently, it was reported that the Kenyan government was considering financing the defences of the six Kenyans whom the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) Chief Prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, has recently applied to have summoned to the Court on the basis of evidence that they participated in crimes against humanity during the post-election violence of 2007-2008. More recently, Kenya, with the support of the African Union (AU), has announced its desire to have the investigation deferred by the Security Council, pursuant to Article 16 of the Rome Statute. Indeed, on February 2nd 2011 AU Commissioner, Jean Ping, sent the UN Security Council a letter requesting the deferral.[1]
Despite committing to the creation of a special tribunal for the post-election violence in December 2008, to date, the Kenyan government has failed to establish national trials and the special tribunal has yet to materialize. Under pressure created by the Prosecutor’s application, Kenya is once again suggesting that it will create such a tribunal. Even if the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber finds that there are reasonable grounds to believe that any or all of the suspects have committed the crimes alleged in the Prosecutor’s application and so grants the application,[2] the positions of the Kenyan administration and the AU seem sure to interfere with any further progress.
A point of particular interest in the ICC’s fraught relationship with the Kenyan government is the fierce…
Toward a Right to Development? : Reflecting on the Endorois Decision
Last month, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (“ACHPR”) handed down a decision on the Endorois peoples’ situation in Kenya. The decision not only marks the end of a nearly 40 year struggle by the Endorois people against the Kenyan government but it also heralds the increasing importance of the third generation human right to development.
The Endorois people are a sub-tribe from central Kenya that were evicted from their lands near Lake Bogoria in the 1970s. The government relocated them to an area that limited their access to a clean water source, central sites of worship and other daily requirements for their pastoral way of life. The Kenyan government failed to provide compensation for this eviction but still proceeded to develop a Game Reserve on the Endorois former lands.
After exhausting all domestic avenues for remedy, the Endorois – with the help of Minority Rights Group International – brought their case before the ACHPR. The ACHPR is a quasi-judicial regional body that renders non-binding decisions aimed at protecting human and collective rights in Africa as envisaged by the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (“African Charter”). Although non-binding, I believe that the decisions from the ACHPR can be viewed as a snapshot of general zeitgeist. Indeed, until the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights starts delivering decisions regularly, the Commission’s decisions will remain…
