Impunity for past human rights violations and transitional justice: Joint Stakeholder Report for the Universal Periodic Review of Liberia
This year Liberia will undergo the fourth review of its human rights records, as part of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), a mechanism of the United Nations Human Rights Council to periodically examine the human rights situation of all UN Member States.
The UPR will provide Liberia the opportunity to report on its actions taken to improve the human rights situation in the country and to fulfil its human rights obligations; as well as to receive recommendations, informed by multi-stakeholder input, from other UN Member States.
The UPR is based on a national report drafted by the State under review, a compilation of UN information and a summary of submissions from different stakeholders (such as national human rights institutions, civil society organizations and regional human rights mechanisms)
In this context, on 7th April, a group of Liberian and international NGOs, including Civitas Maxima, submitted a joint stakeholder report to the Human Rights Council, assessing the progress made by Liberia since the country’s last review in November 2020 and providing concrete recommendations for the years to come.
This report and its recommendations will feed into the documents under consideration during Liberia’s upcoming UPR in November of this year. The joint stakeholder report notably raises a persistent lack of accountability for the crimes and human rights violations committed during the Liberian civil wars and calls for the development of a concrete plan to establish a War and Economic Crimes Court.
Liberia has failed to implement its international human rights obligations
Widespread and systematic violations of international human rights and humanitarian law characterized Liberia’s two brutal armed conflicts, which took place between 1989 and 2003. This included summary executions, massacres, rape and other forms of sexual violence, mutilation and torture, and forced conscription and use of child combatants among the numerous abuses. The violence blighted the lives of tens of thousands of civilians and displaced almost half the population.
To date, not a single person has faced criminal investigation or prosecution in Liberia for these crimes. The only steps toward justice have been cases prosecuted abroad.
The country’s truth and reconciliation commission (TRC), in its final 2009 report recommended the creation of an extraordinary criminal court, which would be a hybrid court composed of Liberian and international judges, prosecutors and other staff with a mandate to try those allegedly responsible.
In their submission to the Human Rights Council the co-signing NGOs highlight that 16 years later, Liberia has yet to implement this critical recommendation made by the TRC. While recent progress is promising, the country has not yet fully established a process of accountability or prosecuted any alleged perpetrators for past gross human rights violations and war crimes.
Making justice a reality in Liberia
The joint stakeholder report therefore suggests, among others, the following recommendations for the Government of Liberia:
- Develop and implement a concrete plan to establish a war and economic crimes court to hold perpetrators of grave crimes committed during Liberia’s armed conflicts to account,
- Engage with the United Nations, African Union, ECOWAS, and other international and regional partners to secure technical and financial assistance to develop a credible court,
- Ensure that a war crimes court for Liberia includes key elements in order to achieve trials that would be fair, meaningful, and credible, taking due account of the recommendations made in the Final report of the TRC of 2009,
- Continue to support efforts by third countries to bring universal jurisdiction cases for civil war-era crimes,
- Develop and implement a comprehensive reparations scheme for all victims of gross human rights violations and war crimes,
- Ensure protection for human rights defenders inside Liberia against attacks and intimidation, and bring to justice those who intimidate or attack human rights defenders,
- Ensure effective protection for victims and witnesses who testify in proceedings on crimes committed during the civil wars, whether in universal jurisdiction cases or before justice mechanisms in Liberia.