Social Science Research Council

Wednesday, 4 August 2010, will indisputably be a date for future generations of Kenyans to remember. Following more than 20 years of debate and several attempts at passing a new constitution, Kenya finally succeeded.

This debate is organized by Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR), working in partnership with the International Center for Transitional Justice – Africa, and The Darfur Consortium. For PDF documents of the debate please go to http://www.csls.ox.ac.uk/otjr.php?show=currentDebate10. To participate please follow the submissions guidelines below and send an 800-1500 word contribution to the debate editor: lydiah-kemunto.bosire@politics.ox.ac.uk.

African countries are critical actors for the International Criminal Court (ICC). While it is clear that Africa forms the largest bloc of ICC member states, and that this year’s review conference of the Rome Statute has taken place in Uganda, other facts are often overlooked.

The necessity of transitional justice in Kenya and the merits of certain institutional mechanisms in particular have been vigorously debated in this forum, as well as within the country itself. In both of these contexts, the perspectives of victims of past violence have received only modest attention.

President Thabo Mbeki, speaking on Africa Day at the Thabo Mbeki Leadership Institute, emphasized a necessary precondition if Africa is to claim the 21st century, namely, “the need for Africa to recapture the intellectual space to define its future, and therefore the imperative to develop its intellectual capital!”
The text of his presentation is available here: [...]