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Brief Overview of the Establishment of the Special Court

The Special Court came out of an initiative by President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, who, following the collapse of the peace process in May 2000, asked for U.N. assistance in establishing a mixed national and international court in Sierra Leone to try “members of the RUF and their accomplices.”²⁷  In August 2000, the Security Council adopted a resolution authorizing the U.N. secretary-general to enter into negotiations with the Sierra Leonean government to establish such a court.²⁸  On January 16, 2002, after more than a year of negotiations, the United Nations and the Sierra Leone government signed an agreement which created the legal framework for the court.²⁹ 

The Special Court is charged with bringing to justice those who bear the greatest responsibility for war crimes, crimes against humanity, other serious violations of international humanitarian law, and certain violations of Sierra Leonean law committed during the civil war in Sierra Leone since November 1996.³⁰  As the civil war began in 1991, the period for which the court has jurisdiction is limited to less than half of the civil war.  Human Rights Watch had previously urged the U.N. Security Council to extend the temporal jurisdiction of the Special Court to cover the entirety of the war.³¹

To date, the Special Court has indicted thirteen individuals from three warring factions – the government-backed CDF and the rebel forces, the RUF and the AFRC.  The indictees are charged with war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other serious violations of humanitarian law for crimes including murder, rape, extermination, acts of terror, enslavement, looting and burning, sexual slavery, conscription of children into an armed force, and attacks on peacekeepers and humanitarian assistance workers.  Nine accused are currently in custody at the Special Court detention facilities facing trial.  The four other indictees – considered to represent some of the “biggest fish” – are dead, missing, or shielded from facing the court.  Foday Sankoh and Sam “Mosquito” Bockarie died in 2003, after which the court withdrew their indictments.³²  Charles Taylor is in exile in Nigeria and Johnny Paul Koroma is believed to be either dead or missing.

The Special Court lacks U.N. Chapter VII powers that obligate governments to cooperate with the court.  This makes the Special Court, unlike the ICTR or the ICTY, dependent on the timely cooperation and compliance of member states with its requests and orders in all areas, including the production of witness testimony or other evidence, the service of warrants, and the search, arrest, and surrender of suspects to the Special Court.  Human Rights Watch has previously urged the United Nations to grant the Special Court Chapter VII powers.³³

In another difference from the ad hoc tribunals, the agreement establishing the Special Court provides for the court to have a Management Committee.  The Management Committee’s mandate is to “assist the Secretary-General in obtaining adequate funding, and provide advice and policy direction on all non-judicial aspects of the operation of the Court, including questions of efficiency, and to perform other functions as agreed by interested States.”³⁴  Its terms of reference provide that the committee is responsible for a number of important functions, including: identification of nominees for the positions of registrar, prosecutor, and judges appointed by the secretary-general; providing guidance on non-judicial aspects of Special Court operations; overseeing the Special Court’s annual budget and other financially related reports, and advising the secretary-general on these; assisting the secretary-general on ensuring adequate funding for the court; encouraging cooperation by states; and reporting regularly to interested states.³⁵  The committee is made up of important financial contributors and other supporters of the Special Court and comprises representatives from Canada, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Lesotho, the United Kingdom, and the United States.³⁶