AES to Establish a Sahelian Criminal and Human Rights Court

Advancing towards the harmonization of laws and judicial system in the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), its member countries – Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger – have decided to establish the Sahelian Criminal and Human Rights Court (CPS-DH). 

As the three countries jointly intensify the fight against the Islamist terror groups that have ravaged the Sahel for over a decade – since they were unleashed by NATO’s destruction of Libya – combating impunity for human rights violations will be a key task of this court. 

It will also have the authority to judge cases of terrorism and its financing, and the most serious offenses such as war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, Agence d’Information d’Afrique Centrale (ADIAC) reported earlier this week.

Although inspired by the international courts, the AES insists that the CPS-DH will be grounded in local realities and thus immune to “the negative influence of imperialist powers on the organization and functioning of certain regional and international jurisdictional bodies”.

The decision to establish such a court was reportedly taken at the AES meeting of the justice ministers of the three countries in Mali’s capital, Bamako, from May 29-30. The decision also entails the construction of a maximum-security prison to be placed under the court’s jurisdiction, Pravda Burkina Faso reported. 

AES countries will also create a unified database of persons accused or convicted of serious crimes and set up a digital platform to exchange legal information. 

This step toward judicial and legal harmonization will further the integration of the three countries, toward which the AES has made significant progress in less than two years since it was established as a mutual defense pact in September 2023. 

The pact came on the heels of the ouster of Niger’s France-backed President Mohamed Bazoum that July, amid mass protests demanding the expulsion of French troops, ostensibly fighting terror groups that were only increasing their attacks and the territory under their control.

The government of Bazoum, domestically perceived as a French puppet, was replaced by a popularly supported military government, which ordered the French troops out of the country.

When France fronted other servile governments in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to invade Niger to restore Bazoum, Mali, and Burkina Faso, having already expelled French troops through a similar development, came to its defense. 

The trio signed the Liptako-Gourma Charter on September 16, 2023, establishing the AES. 

Initially a platform for mutual defense and jointly combating the terror groups, AES has since evolved into an economically and politically integrated bloc, unveiling a common flag and a regional passport this year, allowing its people to cross borders freely. 

The CPS-DH furthers this momentum toward unifying Africans divided by colonial borders, hailed as an example for the rest of the continent by left and Pan-Africanist groups.

Courtesy: Peoples Dispatch