| Abstract | The recent creation of hybrid tribunals in Africa, most notably the Extraordinary African Chambers within the courts of Senegal (EAC) and the Special Criminal Court in the Central African Republic (SCCCAR), serves to reinforce the view that creating internationalized criminal courts is a long and complex process. Moreover, a cursory examination of the Statutes that govern the aforementioned tribunals’ and the ways in which they were created highlights two issues: First, that there are innumerable intricacies involved in attempting to establish a uniform standard of internationalization between the two tribunals. Second, that the creation of an internationalized criminal tribunal does not necessarily require the involvement of the United Nations (UN) but can be the result of initiatives taken by regional bodies or by developments at the national level. The EAC, for example, was established through an agreement between the African Union and Senegal while the SCCCAR is the product of national legislation that authorized the participation of the UN while simultaneously recognizing the primacy of the International Criminal Court. While this demonstrates an evolution in international criminal law (ICL), it also illustrates the fragmentation of ICL with regards to the creation of hybrid tribunals. The article poses the question whether, in the specific context of Africa, where serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law continue to persist, it is prudent to respond to these violations by repeatedly creating ad hoc tribunals. Taking into account the broader objectives of transitional justice, in which hybrid tribunals are supposed to operate, this article proposes to rethink their creation in the future by adopting a uniform format in the form of a permanent regional court and concludes that the International Criminal Law Section of the African Court of Justice and Human and Peoples’ Rights has the potential to play the role of this permanent regional court. |
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