After collapse of ICC cases, it’s time to debate domestic justice

The annual NGO roundtable with the International Criminal Court (ICC) will take place next week at The Hague and it is a good opportunity to revisit the question of Kenya’s relationship with the ICC and what the future holds. The roundtable has been going on for a number of years now and is an opportunity for different organs of the court to interact with civil society actors, who have played a role in the development of what became the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC, and have thereafter also supported the processes of giving practical meaning to the idea of justice through the court.

In relation to Kenya, civil society has played many different roles in giving support to justice as a practical idea. Among other things, Kenyan civil society articulated the need for an international mediation of the political crisis in 2008, reinforced the actual mediation process with ideas, provided analyses of the Kenyan conflict which greatly informed interventions including the subsequent ICC analyses and investigations, provided advice and support in the cooperation between the court and Kenyan authorities, mobilised victims and linked them with organs of the court, offered or advised on witness protection, protected the court against political backlash, and advised on debates about domestic  justice alternatives and so on.