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5 - Battling Impunity in Ituri

from The Bridge to the Hague

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 May 2022

Richard Gaskins
Affiliation:
Brandeis University, Massachusetts
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Summary

The violence in Ituri also became the particular focus for international NGOs, which arrived on the scene largely after the main events had occurred. In an environment filled with intrigue and motivational obscurity, international groups sought to document serious atrocities, providing a direct source for master narratives taken up by the ICC Prosecutor. NGO reports showed their own evolution over time. At first, in covering violence across the whole eastern Congo, they laid the causes of disorder at the feet of national and regional players, with local groups merely caught in the crossfire. But the narrative changed in July 2003 when Human Rights Watch shifted to a criminological idiom. Using language from the Rome Statute, humanitarian agencies characterized the events in Ituri as crimes for which local actors should be held responsible under traditional legal paradigms. The moral battle against impunity for such crimes became a rallying cry that surrounded Hague legal proceedings with a sense of higher mission. The skeptical attack on victors’ justice was replaced with a new commitment to justice for victims, for which the ICC was the proper venue.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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  • Battling Impunity in Ituri
  • Richard Gaskins, Brandeis University, Massachusetts
  • Book: The Congo Trials in the International Criminal Court
  • Online publication: 26 May 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009208772.006
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  • Battling Impunity in Ituri
  • Richard Gaskins, Brandeis University, Massachusetts
  • Book: The Congo Trials in the International Criminal Court
  • Online publication: 26 May 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009208772.006
Available formats
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To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Battling Impunity in Ituri
  • Richard Gaskins, Brandeis University, Massachusetts
  • Book: The Congo Trials in the International Criminal Court
  • Online publication: 26 May 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009208772.006
Available formats
×