© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press.
Geographies of Crime and Justice: Contemporary Transitional Justice and the Creation of ‘Zones of Impunity’
* Chair in Human Rights and Director of the Centre on Human Rights in Conflict, School of Law, University of East London
Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, University of Georgia
E-mail: c.sriram{at}uel.ac.uk
E-mail: rossamy{at}uga.edu
This article explores some of the challenges that transnational crimes pose to the operation of transnational justice. By transnational crimes, we mean serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law that transcend national borders and are perpetrated by state or non-state actors. Many national and international legal mechanisms may only address a segment of these crimes, creating what we refer to as ‘zones of impunity.’ This article examines how these dilemmas are unfolding in three African contexts: the possibility that Charles Taylor is tried for crimes in Sierra Leone but not in Liberia; that only Congolese, and not Rwandans or Ugandans, face prosecution for crimes in Ituri or elsewhere in the Democratic Republic of Congo; or that Joseph Kony escapes prosecution in Uganda through being allowed amnesty or exile in Sudan. Our analytic framework considers how geography and politics affect legal responses to transnational crimes.
This paper draws upon fieldwork carried out by Professor Sriram in Sierra Leone under the British Academy grant SG-3725, and in Sudan under the Nuffield grant SGS/01159/G and a grant from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland. Fieldwork by Dr Ross was undertaken in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo with the support of the University of Georgia Research Foundation, the Willson Center for the Humanities and Arts and the Department of Geography. The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the editors of the journal for helpful criticism, comments and suggestions. Any errors are ours alone.