On 4 April 2017, the Colombian Congress passed amendments to the Constitution creating the ‘Integral System of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Non-repetition’ (‘El Sistema law). This law is part of the fast-track package used to implement the peace deal signed between the government of President Juan Manuel Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas on 24 November 2016. The new El Sistema law brings the implementation of the deal one step closer to reality as it creates a unique transitional justice mechanism oriented towards truth and reparations to victims. Yet the law’s limited reach and lack of popular support for the deal may stall further progress. The Legitimacy Question The document signed in November 2016 is the second version of the peace deal, after Colombian voters rejected by a narrow margin the first draft in the referendum of 2 October 2016. This result was largely unexpected. There are many factors that explain the failure of the first peace deal in the national plebiscite. The first is…
Transitional Justice
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ICTY Convicts Radovan Karadzic
Yesterday the ICTY Trial Chamber convicted Radovan Karadzic, the wartime political leader of the Bosnian Serbs, for numerous crimes committed during the conflict and sentenced him to 40 years imprisonment. The (mammoth) trial judgment is here, standing at 2615 pages that not even Karadzic's lawyers will read as a whole; the more accessible summary is here.
Syria the Land of Impunity
The Geneva Communiqué of the Action Group for Syria of 30 June 2012, which was endorsed by the UNSC Resolution 2118 (2013), identified key steps for a Syrian led political transition. The Communiqué problematized the “Syrian conflict” as one involving a challenge of security, safety and restoration of stability and calm. During the first half of…
An Assessment of the Colombian-FARC ‘Peace Jurisdiction’ Agreement
Last week Wednesday (23 September 2015), Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos met in Cuba with the leader of the Colombian guerrilla movement FARC (alias Timochenko”), to publicly announce the agreement to establish a ‘Special Peace Jurisdiction’ reached between the Government and FARC. This is certainly a milestone in the Colombian peace process. While many local and international voices…
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