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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:The big fish won't fry themselves: criminal accountability for post-election violence in Kenya
Authors:Brown, StephenISNI
Sriram, Chandra LekhaISNI
Year:2012
Periodical:African Affairs: The Journal of the Royal African Society (ISSN 1468-2621)
Volume:111
Issue:443
Pages:244-260
Language:English
Geographic term:Kenya
Subjects:transitional justice
political violence
responsibility
impunity
elections
2007
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/41494487
Abstract:This article examines the demand for criminal accountability for the atrocities committed after Kenya's contested December 2007 elections. It explains why, despite strong popular desire for accountability through prosecutions and the threat of and actual International Criminal Court (ICC) involvement, the government has failed to take concrete steps to try those believed primarily responsible. The article argues that the fundamental reason why the government has not initiated systematic prosecutions in regular domestic courts - or created, as promised, a hybrid national/international tribunal - is that those in charge of establishing these processes are, in many cases, those whom it would prosecute or their close allies. A hybrid tribunal now seems unlikely and credible national trials are an improbable alternative, though there are some reasons to be more optimistic following the new constitution of 2010. For the time being only international justice, which is beyond the government's reach, can achieve a breakthrough in criminal accountability, albeit in a very limited way. Notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]
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