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The President on Trial: Prosecuting Hissene Habre

The President on Trial: Prosecuting Hissene Habre

Author: Sharon Weill; Kim Thuy Seelinger; Kerstin Bree Carlson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780198858621
Published In: May 2020
Format: Hardback
Jurisdiction: U.K. ? Disclaimer:
Countri(es) stated herein are used as reference only

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During the 1980s, thousands of Chadian citizens were detained, tortured, and raped by then-President Hissène Habré's security forces. Decades later, Habré was finally prosecuted for his role in these atrocities not in his own country or in The Hague, but across the African continent, at the Extraordinary African Chambers in Senegal. By some accounts, Habré's trial and conviction by a specially built court in Dakar is the most significant achievement of global criminal justice in the past decade. Simply creating a court and commencing a trial against a deposed head of state was an extraordinary success. With its 2016 judgment, affirmed on appeal in 2017, the hybrid tribunal in Senegal exceeded expectations, working to deadlines and within its budget, with no murdered witnesses or self-dealing officials.

This book details and contextualizes the Habré trial. It presents the trial and its impact using a novel structure of first-person accounts from 26 direct actors (Part I), accompanied by academic analysis from leading experts on international criminal justice (Part II). Combined, these views present both local and international perspectives through distinct but inter-locking parts: empirical source material from understudied actors both within and outside the court is then contextualized with expert analysis that reflects on the construction and work of: the Extraordinary African Chamber (EAC) as well as wider themes of international criminal law. Together with an introduction laying out the work and significance of the EAC and its trial of Hissène Habré, the book is a comprehensive consideration of a history-making trial.

Foreword, Denis Mukwege, 2018 Nobel Peace Prize Co-recipient

Hissène Habré on Trial: Mapping the Long Road to Justice (Sharon Weill, Kim Thuy Seelinger, and Kerstin Carlson)

Part I. The Trial as Told by its Actors

Editors' Introduction

A. Early Prosecution Attempts (1982-2012)

1: The 'Archives of Terror', Olivier Bercault, Human Rights Watch coordinator of the case (2000- 2008).

2: The Making of Chad's Truth Commission, Judge Abakar Mahamat Hassan, President of the Chadian Truth Commission

3: Documenting Crimes and Organizing Victims in Chad, Souleymane Guengueng, Founder of the Association of Victims of Political Repression in Chad

4: Tenacity, Perseverance, and Imagination in the 'Private International Prosecution' of Hissène Habré, Reed Brody, Senior Counsel with Human Rights Watch and architect of Chadian victims' long campaign for justice

5: Defending Habré in Senegal During the Early Years, Hélene Cissé, member of Habré's defence team in the first domestic proceedings in Senegal (1999-2001)

6: The Belgian Investigation of the Habré Regime, Excerpt of EAC trial testimony of Daniel Fransen, Belgian Investigating Judge

7: In His Own Words: An Interview with Hissène Habré, Excerpted interview from La Gazette, Dakar, 2011

B. Establishing the Court

8: Creating the EAC in Senegal: Perspectives from the African Union, Ben Kioko, Former Legal Counsel to the Commission of the African Union and judge on the African Court on Human and People's Rights

9: Arresting Habré, Marcel Mendy, Coordinator of the EAC Communications Unit

10: Investigations in Senegal and Chad: Cooperation and Challenges, Judge Jean Kandé, Investigating judge at the EAC

11: Managing the EAC, Amadou Mokhtar Seck, EAC Administration and Finance Office

12: Professionalizing a Political Trial: A Clerk's Perspective, Abouly Ba, clerk at the EAC

C. The Trial

13: Prosecuting International Crimes in Senegal, Mbacke Fall, EAC Prosecutor

14: Defending Habré, Mounir Ballal, court-appointed defense lawyer before the EAC

15: From Victim to Witness and the Challenges of Sexual Violence Testimony, Jacqueline Moudeina, Victims' Legal Counsel before the EAC

16: Supporting Victims at Trial: Civil Parties' Perspective, Alain Werner and Emmanuelle Marchand, Legal consultants for Civil Parties during the trial

17: Can we be friends? Offering an Amicus Curiae Brief to the EAC, Kim Thuy Seelinger, Naomi Fenwick, Khaled Alrabe, UC Berkeley

18: The Habré Trial Judgement: A Summary of the First Instance Judgements of the EAC, Elise Le Gall, International Criminal Law expert with the EAC Office of the Prosecutor

19: The Habré Appeals Decision: A Summary of the Appeal Decision of the EAC, Elise Le Gall

20: Reflections on the Habré Appeals Decision, Judge Ouagadeye Wafi, EAC Appeals Chamber

21: The Real Fight Begins

Victims Struggle for an Effective Right to Reparation, Gaëlle Carayon and Jeanne Sulzer (Redress/FIDH)

D. Beyond the Courtroom

22: A Donor's Perspective, Sarah Valentina Fall, Human Rights and Human Security program, Swiss Embassy in Dakar

23: Outreach for the EAC: An Extraordinary Experience, Franck Petit, team leader for the Outreach Consortium on the EAC

24: Covering Habré: The Diary of a Local Journalist, Ngoundji Dieng, Senegalese Journalist for Senegalese daily, The Quotidien

25: Prosecutions in Chad, Henri Thulliez, Senior coordinator for Human Rights Watch

26: Academia as Partner in the Habré Trial, Érick Sullivan and Fannie Lafontaine, The Clinic for International Criminal and Humanitarian Law (CDIPH), Laval University, Canada

Part II. Reflections on the Significance of the Habré Case and Beyond

Editors' Introduction

A. Portraits, Positionality, Paradigms

27: Africa Against Global Justice? Stakes for Building a Political Sociology on the Futures of International Criminal Justice, Sara Dezalay

28: The Habré trial and the Malabo Protocol: An Emerging African Criminal Justice?, Ndeye Amy Ndiaye

29: Expertise in the Bench? The Dis-Embeddedness of International Criminal Justice, Julien Seroussi

30: Hybrid Justice and the Rights of the Defence: Existence at the Periphery, Dov Jacobs

B. Institutions, Norms, and Pillars

31: Hybrid: A Spectrum of Possibilities, Mark Kersten and Kirsten Ainley

32: "Civil Law" v. "Common Law" Criminal Procedure: The Key or the Lock for ICL Success, Leila Bourguiba

33: The ICJ's Senegal v. Belgium Judgment and the Obligation to Prosecute or Extradite Alleged Torturers: The Case of Al Bashir and the ICC, Manuel Ventura and Victor Baiesu

34: Victims as a Third Party at the ICCL Empowerment of Victims?, Liesbeth Zegveld

C. Capturing the Judicial Process: Actors and Dynamics

35: "We Will Not Go Away": The Participation of Victims in International Criminal Tribunals, Eric Stover and Stephen Cody

36: Reparations and the Habré Trial in Context, Christophe Sperfeldt

37: Hybrid Courts and Amicus Curiae Briefing, Sarah Williams

38: "Sexualized Slavery" and Customary International Law, Patricia Sellers and Jocelyn Kestenbaum

39: Witness Protection, Nancy Combs

D. The Political and its Interaction: Captured Institutions?

40: Hissène Habré, the Little Bird on the Brance, and the Challenges of International Criminal Justice, Pierre Hazan

41: The ICC and Africa, Richard Goldstone

42: The 'Habré Effect', Universal Jurisdiction and Courts in Africa, Mia Swart

43: Main Challenges and the Future of International Criminal Law, William Schabas