THE CONGO TRIALS IN THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT.

• Author: Keith, Kenneth

THE CONGO TRIALS IN THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT

Author: Richard Gaskins Published by: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2020, 463pp, $192.95.

Professor Richard Gaskins, a professor of law and social welfare at Brandeis University, for over a decade designed and directed student exchange programmes in The Hague which combined academic theory and hands on experience of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in action, along with interviews with those involved, including non-governmental organisations. In this book, he describes and assesses the three trials of four individuals accused of committing crimes within the jurisdiction of the court; two were co-accused. The crimes in two of the trials were allegedly committed in Ituri, a region in the north-east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, bordering Uganda and Rwanda. The third concerned crimes in the Central African Republic to the north of the Congo. He also deals briefly with the trial and conviction of a fifth accused from Ituri, a conviction which occurred as the book was going to press and which has since been upheld on appeal.

Of the five accused, two were acquitted, one on appeal following his conviction at trial, after being held in detention for ten years by the Court--'shocking', says the author, and who can disagree? Those bare figures must, of course, be put into much broader contexts, notably the horrors of the wars in the Great Lakes area, in which forces from Uganda and Rwanda were also heavily involved and which were so destructive of life, liberty and resources, the last being looted as well; the great hopes arising from the lead up to, and creation of, the ICC; and the requirements of a fair trial, particularly the rights of the accused.

The author, drawing on his observation of what happened over many years, provides a fascinating and carefully documented account linking those three matters. He begins with a few pages headed 'A Laboratory for Global Justice', proceeds through nine chapters organised in four parts and concludes with 'Observations'. He makes it clear from the outset that his purpose is to leave it to the readers, on the basis of his study of how the trials unfolded, to make their own judgments about the future of global justice, as seen in the operation of the ICC.

As Gaskins recognises, the wars were also the subject of proceedings brought in the International Court of Justice by the Democratic Republic of the Congo against Uganda, as well as Rwanda. The court found that it did not have jurisdiction in the latter case but in the former it ruled in 2005...