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Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict: Day Two – Transitional Justice

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Blog entry by Martha Flynn

As the second day of the Summit to End Sexual Violence drew to a close, it became clear that the event’s discussions could be drawn into two categories: those seeking to develop measures for preventing violence and those fighting to end impunity for sexual violence crimes. Though these two goals are obviously not mutually exclusive, today’s closing talk by ActionAid Australia put forward a compelling argument for increasing the focus on reinforcing women’s access to justice for these crimes. What is more, and perhaps even more interestingly, it showed how far international organisations have come in responding to critiques of the transitional models that they stand so firmly by.

An introduction by Natasha Stott Despoja, Australian Ambassador for Women and Girls, set the tone for what would be a very sophisticated discussion of the role that governments and international bodies can play in improving sexual violence survivor’s access to justice. Echoing the language used within UN discourse on the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ and that of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) Rome Statute, Stott Despoja situated the work of the Australian government and Action Aid firmly within the current international political framework whilst conveying the exact steps that must be taken to operationalise the legislation already in place. From sensitivity training for peace-keeping troops to building the capacity of domestic legal systems, concrete examples of how the international community might successfully contribute dispelled some fears of yet more ineffective and inefficient initiatives by governments from the Global North.

Despite previous reservations, the points made by Executive Director of the Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice at the ICC Brigid Inder proved equally persuasive. Though it will be interesting to see how the ICC’s commitment to mainstreaming gender analysis at every point of prosecution is implemented, her reiteration of the Court’s renewed commitment to ensuring crimes of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) are brought before its tribunal seemed a promising step. Moreover, though Inder’s blanket rejection of Amnesty Acts appeared somewhat ill-considered, the ICC’s evident interest in partnering with grassroots NGO’s and the recent prosecution of Bosco Ntaganda for sexual crimes against children may well herald a new era of international organisation’s work in transitional justice.

Similarly, Nadine Puechguirbal, the UN’s Coordinator for Action against Sexual Violence in Conflict, provided an astute gender analysis of current transitional models that resonated with current academic literature. Reiterating the necessity of departing from ‘male-centric’ conceptions of justice and treating women and girls as a homogenous group of victims, Puechguirbal’s speech reflected how far the UN has come from its first gender-insensitive transitional justice experiments on the African continent. Furthermore, her focus on involving women as actors in the planning and operations of the transitional process to the formation of gender-just post-conflict societies suggested a real UN commitment to operating Resolution 1325. Though it would be overly optimistic to suggest that the UN has developed tools to truly bring about transformative change in post-conflict settings, the UN official’s perspective suggested a sound gender-sensitive theoretical basis upon which the global institution might move forward.

However, Carol Angir from ActionAid’s analysis of what remains left to do to build an effective and holistic transitional model reminded the panel of the significant flaws in international institutions’ attitudes. Stressing the importance of letting survivors shape their own ‘justice’, Angir almost seemed to hint at a rejection of the UN and ICC’s current blinkered dependence on traditional retributive methods of justice. Compellingly, she called for a new conception of justice that focused on the achievement of economic, political and physical and well-being justice for survivors rather than solely punishing perpetrators. Likewise, as Angir highlighted the need to avoid focusing solely on sexual violence that occurs within the conflict period, she put forward an understanding of violence that portrayed the limits of traditional transitional justice models’ mandates.

Fortunately, the second half of the discussion opened up to a range of international delegates, some of them survivors of sexual violence themselves, who were given the opportunity to challenge the panel’s claims. For instance, Olivia from the DRC portrayed the transitional model as ineffective in dealing with the day-to-day violence experienced by women and everyday obstacles that impeded women’s access to justice. More specifically, a Kenyan delegate challenged the ICC’s model of justice in denouncing its inability to provide much needed reconciliation and rehabilitation in the post-ethnic conflict settings. Though Bridget Inder succeeded in highlighting the fact that domestic courts are primarily responsible for justice enforcement, a questioned posed by an Afghan delegate critiquing international organisations’ inability to enforce necessary institutional change further undermined the positions’ of the ICC and UN officials on the stage. A final comment from the Director of ActionAid Burundi, portrayed the reality of many women’s experiences of the transitional process: continuing everyday violence and a return to pre-conflict economic and political powerlessness.