Brief 3 : implementing the responsibility to protect through agenda one of Kenya's national accord

UN member states adopted the World Summit outcome document and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) in 2005, reaffirming political commitment from both states and the international community to protect civilians from crimes against humanity, genocide, ethnic cleansing and war crimes. Following Kenya’s 2007 post-election violence, Agenda One of the National Accord outlined policy actions to implement R2P through measures to stop violence, disband ethnic militia and prosecute persons responsible for crimes against humanity committed during the crisis. Progress has been made; the violence was halted, a majority of the displaced returned to their homes, and most illegal groups disappeared. However, international intervention is still needed because a critical part of Agenda One has not been implemented; few people have been held accountable for the violence. Legislative attempts to establish a local tribunal to try high-level perpetrators have failed, and over five thousand cases against low-level offenders remain pending before magistrates’ courts. The prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC) has observed that ‘the court should be seen as a tool in the R2P toolbox’ through its role in fighting impunity for atrocity crimes..

Más allá de las buenas intenciones: implementar la Convención de Kampala

La nueva Convención para la Protección y Asistencia de las Personas Desplazadas Internas en África de la Unión Africana (Convención de Kampala) destaca las obligaciones de una amplia gama de actores en todas las fases del desplazamiento

Go back home? : autochthony, territoriality, and solutions to internal displacement in Kenya

Humanitarian policy and practice tend to promote the return of internally displaced persons to their place of origin as the most desirable and sustainable solution to their situation. While the end of violence can promote resolution, the assertion of autochthony by indigenous groups can prevent the sustainable return of displaced outsiders, whose home is associated with another geographical space. An examination of the situation of internally displaced persons in Kenya reveals that nativist notions of belonging narrow the available options for ending displacement. Claims to space on the basis of the broader conceptions of national citizenship and legal rights, as opposed to indigeneity, attach multiple meanings to the notion of place of origin with implications for durable solutions

Truth and reconciliation commissions in Africa : lessons and implications for Kenya ; a briefing paper

This brief indicates some lessons and problems from TRC experiences in Africa and makes recommendations for Kenya. Drawing on experiences from South Africa, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana and DRC, this brief cautions that previous TRCs have not been as successful as is sometimes assumed. While the South African TRC (SATRC) gave new prominence to TRCs (or TJRC in the case of Kenya3), it has led to a fixation on a particular form of transitional justice at the expense of careful consideration of the goals sought and the context of the specific transitions. For the Kenyan TJRC to succeed it will have to respond to some of the problems identified

Failure to protect: lessons from Kenya’s IDP network

State-instigated violence in the 1990s in Kenya left thousands dead and hundreds of thousands displaced. Today some 430,000 IDP's live in abysmal conditions. This is in spite of the fact that Kenya has an IDP support network, a vibrant civil society and, since a historic election in 2002, political freedom to organise. What has gone wrong

Truth and reconciliation commissions and transitional justice in Africa : lessons and implications for Kenya ; background paper

The table of contents for this item can be shared with the requester. The requester may then choose one chapter, up to 10% of the item, as per the Fair Dealing provision of the Canadian Copyright ActThis Policy Brief is intended to contribute to the public debate on the proposed Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) for Kenya. The content is informed by ongoing research being carried out by NPI-Africa and the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP). Focusing specifically on respondent’s expectations and perceptions, the research aims at drawing out lessons from transitional justice experiences in Africa, in particular the increasingly popular TRC approach. The research examined three countries that have concluded their TRCs or equivalents (Ghana, Sierra Leone and South Africa), one that is in the process of implementing (Liberia) and two that are still considering setting up TRCs (DRC, Kenya). Respondents were drawn from a wide sample of victims, experts, former commissioners, civil society actors, government officials, perpetrators, individuals who gave testimonies or submitted statements to the commissions, relatives of victims, care professionals and researchers, among others

Errores en materia de protección: lecciones de la red de desplazados internos de Kenia

La violencia instigada por el Estado en la década de los noventa provocó miles de muertos en Kenia y cientos de miles de desplazados. En la actualidad, unos 430.000 desplazados internos sobreviven en condiciones infrahumanas. Y todo ello, a pesar de que Kenia cuenta con una red de apoyo a los desplazados internos, una sociedad civil dinámica y, desde las elecciones históricas de 2002, el reconocimiento de la libertad política de asociación. ¿Qué es lo que ha fallado?