NPWJ Status Report December 2001

NPWJ SIERRA LEONE MISSION

Narrative Status Report December 2001

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1.    Introduction
2.    Negotiations for the Establishment of the Special Court for Sierra Leone
3.    NPWJ’s Activities in Sierra Leone
4.    Planning Mission for the Special Court
5.    Conclusions

Appendix 1 — Members of the Special Court Working Group as at 30 June 2001
Appendix 2—Judicial Assistance Program
Appendix 3—Outreach Program
Appendix 4—Book Donation Program
Appendix 5—World Justice Day 2001

1. Introduction
This report aims to provide an overview thus far of the activities of the No Peace Without Justice (NPWJ) Sierra Leone Mission and, in light of this, discuss the imminent role of NPWJ in respect of preparation for the establishment of the Special Court.

The Agreement for the Special Court will be signed in Freetown between 14-18 January 2002, when the United Nations Planning Mission goes to Sierra Leone to arrange for the practical arrangements for the establishment and operation of the Special Court. A critical juncture has therefore been reached with the upcoming dispatch of the Planning Mission to Sierra Leone, which will examine and decide on the actual establishment and operations of the Special Court and lay the initiate the prosecutorial and investigative work.

It is essential that both the Government and civil society of Sierra Leone have sufficient input into the work and conclusions of the Planning Mission, in order that the Special Court take proper cognisance of the particular context within which it is operating, so that the Court may be more effective in providing redress to victims and a sense that justice has been done.
The Government of Sierra Leone, both the Mission to the United Nations in New York and the Attorney-General’s Office in Freetown, have requested NPWJ to provide assistance in the lead-up to and throughout the duration of the Planning Mission. During the Planning Mission’s stay in Sierra Leone, NPWJ will work with the Government and civil society in Sierra Leone to ensure that the United Nations integrates the needs of Sierra Leone into the institutional design of the Special Court. It will do so by ensuring the Government Task Force, which is intended to act as a counterpart to the Planning Mission, is ready to liase effectively with the Planning Mission, including holding consultations on the appointment of Special Court officials and the smooth transfer of evidence to the interim Prosecutor and investigators.

In addition, NPWJ will ensure that the public is kept fully informed of all relevant aspects of the Planning Mission, through the establishment of a media centre, and ensuring civil society has adequate participation in the work of the Planning Mission. This is particularly relevant when it is considered that UNAMSIL appears to be reluctant to engage in issues relating to the Special Court and the Office of Legal Affairs has made various policy choices which at times have appeared to be questionable. NPWJ will therefore work not only to facilitate the involvement of Government and civil society, it will also play a role in enhancing the effectiveness of various policy choices, such as the type of investigative methodology, information systems and ensuring public information about the work of the Court.

This report starts with background information concerning the negotiations for the Special Court for Sierra Leone, to place the work of the NPWJ Sierra Leone Mission in context. It goes on to discuss the activities undertaken by NPWJ in Sierra Leone, with more detail provided in the appendices, breaking these activities into the broad areas of (1) The Judicial Assistance Program; (2) The Outreach Program; and (3) Other activities, namely the Book Donation Program and World Justice Day 2001. It concludes with a detailed consideration of the Planning Mission for the Special Court, emphasising the aims of the mission and the role of NPWJ, particularly in terms of why NPWJ’s presence is necessary to ensure the overall effectiveness of the mission.

2. Negotiations for the Establishment of the Special Court for Sierra Leone
In June 2000, Sierra Leone requested assistance from the United Nations in bringing to justice those who bear the greatest responsibility for crimes committed during the conflict in Sierra Leone. Since then, the United Nations has been in negotiations with the Sierra Leone Government to establish a Special Court for this purpose. As discussions commenced during the June 2000 PrepCom, NPWJ and legal experts assigned to the Sierra Leone Mission to the UN were directly involved in the initial stages of discussions to establish such a judicial body. As part of the Judicial Assistance Program, NPWJ legal experts extended the scope of their advice to the Sierra Leone Mission to the United Nations in New York to include advice on initial drafts of a Security Council resolution regarding the establishment of a Special Court.

On 14 August 2000, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1315 (2000) requesting the UN Secretary-General to conclude an agreement with the Government of Sierra Leone to establish a Special Court to prosecute those who bear the greatest responsibility for violations of international humanitarian law during the conflict. The Secretary General reported on the negotiations between the Government of Sierra Leone and the United Nations in October 2000, which was followed by an exchange of letters in December 2000 and January 2001. For all intents and purposes, the text of the Statute and Agreement was finalised at this time. Following lengthy budget discussions and the soliciting of pledges for funds from member States of the United Nations, a UN assessment team (the Planning Mission) will be sent to Sierra Leone to begin work on the logistics of the Court in January 2002. During the visit of the Planning Mission, the Agreement for the Special Court will be signed and the officials of the Special Court, including the Prosecutor, Registrar and Judges, will be selected.

The potential the Special Court holds for Sierra Leone can only be realised fully with effective negotiation by the Government and participation by civil society. Not only will the Special Court play a crucial role in returning peace and justice to the country, it has the added potential of creating greater stability in a war-wrecked region. By prosecuting the most senior planners and organisers of serious violations of international humanitarian law, it would restore a measure of justice to victims of the appalling crimes committed throughout the course of the conflict and signal an end to the impunity of those who have committed and continue to commit such crimes. This restoration of the rule of law within the country can only be beneficial throughout the entire region, with its potential to act as a spur to regional stability.

3. NPWJ’s Activities in Sierra Leone
3.a. Judicial Assistance Program—2000 and 2001

In July 2000, responding to the request of Sierra Leone to provide specialised assistance, a legal expert was seconded to the Sierra Leone Mission to the UN in New York to continue the work of assisting the Sierra Leone Ambassador to the UN. In August 2000, a further two legal experts were seconded to the office of the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice in Freetown, Sierra Leone. This ensured that the Government, with the advice of NPWJ seconded personnel, was able to form a co-ordinated response, both in Freetown and in New York, and to convey that response in the best possible way at the best possible time. By maintaining this close contact, NPWJ legal experts have kept the often delicate negotiations balanced and ensured that the concerns of Sierra Leone are not lost in the debate.

The work of NPWJ legal experts has centred around advising the Sierra Leone Government on critical issues arising from the proposed Special Court and issues of international criminal justice in general, including representing the Government during meetings and negotiations, particularly in New York. This, together with detailed legal and policy analyses and recommendations on a number of issues raised directly and indirectly by the ongoing negotiations, has enabled Sierra Leone to formulate policies and address all the relevant issues in a timely manner, including drafting implementing legislation for the Special Court. By maintaining constant contact between New York and Freetown, the NPWJ team ensured that both the Attorney-General and the Mission have been kept informed of all ongoing developments in terms of the negotiations and the preparatory work for the Court.

In addition, the NPWJ legal experts have been assisting the Attorney General and the Mission with various other tasks relating to international human rights and humanitarian law. For example, in New York the NPWJ legal experts have been participating in the VI (Legal) Committee of the General Assembly while in Freetown the Government has often taken advantage of the presence of NPWJ international law experts to provide information and analyses on matters within their areas of expertise, such as requirements of implementing legislation for the International Criminal Court.

3.b. Outreach Program—2001

During the team’s stay in Freetown in 2000, NPWJ identified a need for public sensitisation and education, given that what was being reported concerning the Special Court in the local media was often wildly inaccurate. The NPWJ Sierra Leone Mission was therefore expanded in 2001 to include an Outreach Program, designed to facilitate public information and sensitisation on the Special Court.

The Outreach Program commenced with “The Freetown Conference on Accountability Mechanisms for Violations of International Humanitarian Law in Sierra Leone”, held in the Lagoonda Complex on 20 to 22 February 2001 and was attended by over 100 mainly Sierra Leonean participants. The conference aimed to provide a vehicle for the exploration of mechanisms designed to provide accountability for atrocities committed in Sierra Leone during the course of the conflict.

It focussed on the two mechanisms envisaged for Sierra Leone (the Special Court and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission) and the interaction between those institutions as well as exploring how traditional or customary justice could be incorporated into or operate alongside those mechanisms. Since the overarching aim of the conference was to ensure the voices of Sierra Leoneans could be heard, the participants met in smaller working group sessions to discuss specific issues in depth with the assistance of foreign experts. This productive and interactive setting facilitated the adoption of recommendations by the plenary session of the conference, including the holding of training workshops on the Special Court. Another key recommendation, based on the need for ownership of the various accountability mechanisms by the people of Sierra Leone, was the establishment of a coalition of interested Sierra Leonean NGOs to conduct the bulk of public sensitisation and information sharing about the Special Court. This concrete set of recommendations formed the basis for much of the outreach work undertaken by NPWJ in the following months.

The purpose of the “Training the Trainers” seminars, which are intended to implement one of the recommendations of the Lagoonda Conference, is to present a detailed overview of the provisions of the draft Statute and Agreement for the Special Court. To place the Special Court in context, the seminars also include a brief introduction to the purposes and principles of international humanitarian and criminal law and various practical issues surrounding the Special Court. The intention was to hold a number of identical workshops over a period of days, limiting the participation within each session to ensure the maximum opportunity for discussion by participants. This model was employed over a number of months to facilitate holding seminars both in Freetown, the capital city, and in the provinces. The series of seminars thus held attracted a total of over 600 participants from a diverse range of human rights, civil society and other organisations, including the RUF and the CDF. Training sessions were also held at the DDR camp in Lunsar and “extra-ordinary” sessions were held for specialised groups, such as the legal profession and human rights monitors. An additional motive for the training seminars conducted in March was to identify those members of Sierra Leone civil society who were interested in establishing a “Special Court Working Group”, which would be mandated with carrying out the public sensitisation and information campaign about the Special Court.
Following another key recommendation to emerge from the Lagoonda Conference, NPWJ facilitated the establishment of a coalition of Sierra Leone civil society organisations who were interested in and could play a crucial role in outreach and sensitisation and could ensure information being disseminated about the Special Court by various groups within Sierra Leone would be uniform and consistent. NPWJ organised a number of meetings of this coalition of interested organisations, under the name of the Special Court Working Group (SCWG); the number of participants in working group meetings has now grown to a total of 39 members. The SCWG, which met every two weeks in plenary and more often in smaller specialised groups, discussed the types of messages concerning the Special Court that would need to be directed to specific groups within Sierra Leone, together with the modalities through which the sensitisation programme would be implemented. The SCWG adopted its constitution on 30 June 2001 and held elections for the national executive in July 2001, from which time the Special Court Working Group Sierra Leone (SCWG-SL) was established as an independent legal entity.

Following elections of the National Executive Committee, NPWJ continues to support the work and activities of the Working Group, both through the provision of any necessary assistance, as well as by building on the cooperative relationship already established to undertake further sensitisation activities. NPWJ has thus assisted in the establishment of the SCWG SL both as a means to build local capacity for conducting a full scale outreach program as well as to ensure the existence of a local organisation that fulfils the requirements outlined during the Lagoonda conference. In addition, the SCWG-SL has been active in lobbying both the Government of Sierra Leone and the United Nations on various aspects of the Special Court, including the temporal jurisdiction of the Court and civil society involvement in the Planning Mission for the Special Court.

3.c. Other activities

In addition to the work of the Judicial Assistance and Outreach Programs, NPWJ has been conducting a Book Donation Program. The aim of this program is to solicit donations of legal texts from universities, law book publishers and individuals for shipment to Sierra Leone. The beneficiaries of this program are intended to be the Human Rights Clinic at the Fourah Bay College, the Sierra Leone Bar Association and local human rights organisations. NPWJ has been soliciting donations through its networks and, where the donors are unable to ship the books, arranging for their shipment to Freetown.

On Tuesday, 17 July 2001, No Peace Without Justice-Sierra Leone hosted a reception to celebrate the three-year anniversary of the adoption of the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court. The reception, during which a large amount of sensitisation material about both the TRC and the Special Court was available for guests to peruse and take with them, attracted a wide range of dignitaries and representatives of human rights and civil society organisations. Overall, the evening provided interested people in Freetown with the opportunity to gather and talk about issues relating to accountability for violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.

4. Planning Mission for the Special Court
As stated above, the United Nations is sending an assessment mission to Sierra Leone (the Planning Mission), which will be comprised of United Nations officials, interim Special Court officials and representatives of the Management Committee, a group of member States responsible for overseeing the non-judicial administration of the Court. The Government of Sierra Leone has formed a “Task Force” whose members will act as counterparts to the members of the Planning Mission. According to the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs, the Planning Mission will be charged with “discussing with the Government of Sierra Leone the practical arrangements for the establishment and operation of the court, including premises, the provision of local personnel and services and the launching of the investigative and prosecutorial process”. The Agreement between the Government of Sierra Leone and the United Nations for the establishment of the Special Court will be signed in January 2002, during the visit of the Planning Mission to Sierra Leone. Other projected outcomes of the Planning Mission include laying the groundwork for the arrival of the nucleus of the prosecutorial and administrative staff of the Special Court and the production of a report containing detailed recommendations on the organisation of the start-up of the court.

The involvement of NPWJ in Sierra Leone at this time and in the actual Planning Mission itself has three main purposes. First, to ensure that the Planning Mission works towards achievable and concrete goals aimed at the practical establishment and implementation of the Court. Second, to ensure that the Planning Mission arrives at quantifiable results both in terms of the commencement of investigations and the formulation of concrete and useful recommendations for inclusion in the official report of the Planning Mission. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, to ensure that the recommendations of the Planning Mission reflect the reality of Sierra Lone ad that decisions are taken with the participation of Sierra Leonean authorities and the public, thereby reaching the overarching aim of involving Sierra Leone in the accountability process. The participation of Sierra Leoneans is essential in order to ensure that the work of the Court reflect the demands of accountability that come from Sierra Leone itself, while setting an example of justice for the whole region.

NPWJ will continue to assist the Government by providing legal experts during all phases of the Planning Mission. The legal expert seconded to the Mission of Sierra Leone to the United Nations will attend all meetings of the Planning Mission, as an extension of the role of the Mission with respect to negotiations and other matters relating to the Special Court in New York. Similarly, NPWJ will continue its role within the Attorney-General’s Office by coordinating the work of the Government Task Force and assisting it in its role as counterpart to the Planning Mission through the preparation of policy positions and meeting with members of the Planning Mission on the Government’s behalf.

NPWJ’s presence in Sierra Leone will enable us to have an impact on policy choices made during the Planning Mission that will effect future operations of the court. This will be done both through direct participation in the Planning Mission and indirectly through guiding the Government Task Force in their own policy choices. Further, an indirect impact on the Planning Mission can be attained through ensuring and mobilising public opinion and support and encouraging the people of Sierra Leone to voice their opinions on the various issues raised by the establishment of the Court. One example of this is the prosecutorial policy of the Special Court, which will begin to be developed by the interim Prosecutor during the visit of the Planning Mission. Ensuring the voices of Sierra Leoneans are heard during these formative stages will help alert the Prosecutor to focus on those who bear the greatest responsibility for the atrocities throughout the conflict and ensure that justice is seen to be done, as well as being done. Another example is lobbying for an effective public information campaign and cooperation with Sierra Leone civil society, through demonstrating public interest and the need for public information and education. Thus NPWJ has the opportunity to affect the ultimate effectiveness of the Special Court in terms not only of legal or logistical issues but also in terms of its relevance to the people of Sierra Leone.

The outcomes of the Planning Mission will in many ways dictate the future operations of the Special Court and the degree to which its relevance to the people of Sierra Leone is taken into account during decision-making and implementation. The presence in Sierra Leone of the Planning Mission, particularly the participation of the potential officials of the court and members of the Management Committee, is therefore a unique opportunity to ensure that the work of the Special Court begins in the most effective and efficient way possible. One of the most effective ways to attain this is to mobilise Sierra Leone civil society into taking on the role of “watchdog” in respect of the work of the Planning Mission, which can only be achieved if the presence and aims of the Planning Mission are well publicised. Indeed, one of the key objectives of NPWJ during the Planning Mission is to ensure that the people of Sierra Leone are kept informed of the processes and work of the Planning Mission and have as much opportunities as possible to participate and voice their opinions. NPWJ will therefore establish a “Media Centre”, which will contain pre-prepared statements, the schedule of the Planning Mission and other publicly available information, including outreach materials. The Media Centre can then be transformed into a “Special Court Information Centre” upon the completion of the work of the Planning Mission.

5. Conclusions
NPWJ has invested a lot of time and effort in the judicial assistance program in New York and in Freetown and in the outreach activities in Freetown. As a result of this, many of the key players (both in Sierra Leone and in other countries) as well as the media have come to identify NPWJ as the best source of accurate and candid opinions and assessments of Special Court-related matters. This, coupled with the need for there to be a reliable source for accurate information about the Special Court, makes NPWJ’s involvement in the Planning Mission for the Special Court of critical importance. Key-players in the field, both nationally and internationally, believe that the direction NPWJ set so far has the potential to create an accountability mechanism for Sierra Leone which will have a lasting impact on the country and the region, as well as on the credibility of any international criminal justice institution. It is by no means yet certain that the foundations of either the operative work of the Special Court itself, or its public image, are strong enough to enable it to continue unaided in this direction. NPWJ is uniquely placed to ensure that the conceptual bases laid out by us thus far are adhered to in the future by the Special Court. The innovative work of NPWJ has laid the ground for effective non-governmental action in the are of international criminal justice, experimenting intervention protocols that can be used in the future in analogous situations and in affecting the work of the permanent International Criminal Court.

The processes put in motion by NPWJ’s activities are at the stage where they have already had an impact on establishing accountability for the atrocities committed in Sierra Leone and in guiding public opinion to support these accountability mechanisms. This will become particularly evident during the Planning Mission and the impact NPWJ will be able to have on its deliberations, both from the points of view of the Government and civil society. Once the Planning Mission has completed its work, it will become clear what the institutional and logistic design of the Court will be and whether NPWJ should have further impact on the operations of the Court. These issues will be addressed during the report of the NPWJ Sierra Leone team on the activities and outcomes of the Planning Mission.

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Appendix 1 — Members of the Special Court Working Group as at 30 June 2001

Amnesty International
Association for Sustainable Community Development (ASCOD)
Bambra Town Youth Development Organisation (BTYDO)
Campaign for Good Governance (CGG)
CASOPA-SL
Centre for Coordination for Youth Activities (CCYA)
Centre for Democracy and Human Rights
Child Right Violation Monitoring Network/CCSL
Children’s Welfare and Community Development Programme (CWADEP)
Christian Extension Services (CES)
CMEMO
Current Evangelism Ministries (CEM)
DADA-SL
Defence for Children International (DCI-SL)
Democrat Press
Feethless International
Global Outreach Mission (GOM)
GOAL-Ireland
Grassroots Awareness Organisation
Grassroots Empowerment for Self Reliance (GEMS)
Independent Youth Forum (IYF)
IRCOD
Kogotown Community Development Program (KCDP)
Makeni Union of Youth Groups
Manifesto 99
Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD)
National Forum for Reconciliation (NFFR)
National Youth Council (NYC)
Network Movement for Justice & Development (NMJD)
PAMARDA
People United to Save Humanity (PUSH)
PUSH (Lungi & Port Loko Office)
Restoration Assembly
Save Heritage & Rehabilitate the Environment (SHARE)
Sierra Leone Ex-Combatants Reintegration & Development Organisation (SLERDO)
SLADEA
Sierra Leone Teachers Union--Western Region (SLTU)
Social Awareness and Development Movement (SAM)
World Conference on Religion & Peace (WCRP)

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Appendix 2—Judicial Assistance Program

1. NPWJ cooperation with Sierra Leone: the JAP in ICC negotiations
NPWJ has provided technical cooperation and assistance to Sierra Leone on issues of international humanitarian law since 1998. It was in that year that NPWJ organised a Judicial Assistance Program to assist smaller delegations in participating in the working groups at the Rome Diplomatic Conference for the Establishment of an International Criminal Court. Twelve countries, including Sierra Leone, benefited from the expertise provided by some 35 legal experts, including jurists, lawyers, university professors and researchers, for the duration of the conference. The Judicial Assistance Program was extended throughout the Preparatory Commission (PrepCom) sessions to finalise the annexes to the Rome Statute for an International Criminal Court, with NPWJ continuing to second legal advisers to smaller government delegations involved in the UN negotiations. Among other delegations, NPWJ legal experts assisted the delegation of Sierra Leone to participate actively in negotiations for the ICC in all PrepCom sessions from 1999 to 2001.

The work of the legal advisers primarily involved taking part in formal and informal working-groups, drafting proposals and reports for delegations’ capitals and consulting with and advising delegations. The results of the Judicial Assistance Program, since its beginning in June 1998, have been extremely positive, as countries that would otherwise not have had the human and financial resources to express their concerns have become – through the support and expertise of international legal advisers – active in the work of the PrepComs.

2. Advice to Sierra Leone Government in Freetown
The work of NPWJ legal experts in the capital centred around advising the Attorney General’s Office on critical issues arising from the proposed Special Court and issues of international criminal justice in general. The team provided the Government with detailed legal and policy analyses and recommendations on the draft Statute and draft Agreement for the Special Court produced by the UN Office of Legal Affairs. The team also provided detailed advice on a number of issues raised directly and indirectly by the drafts and the ongoing negotiations in New York through a series of written memoranda and meetings with the Attorney-General and his staff. By maintaining constant contact with New York, the NPWJ team ensured that the Attorney-General was kept informed of all ongoing developments during negotiations at the UN.

In addition, the team in Freetown met with various organisations and people working in areas closely related to the Special Court, including human rights and civil society groups, members of the legal profession and journalists throughout their stay in 2000. Discussions with these groups on broad issues concerning the Special Court enhanced the quality of advice, as it provided the team with additional information on conditions in Sierra Leone. Consequently, the NPWJ Mission in Sierra Leone enabled the Government of Sierra Leone to participate in an informed and effective manner throughout the negotiations with the UN, ensuring that its concerns were heard.

In February 2001, the NPWJ team returned to Freetown, with NPWJ legal experts continuing to provide legal advice to the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice on legal and policy issues relating to the Special Court and international humanitarian and human rights law. The work of the legal advisers substantially mirrors the work undertaken in 2000 in order to assist the Government of Sierra Leone, whether in the Mission or the capital, in presenting a coordinated response and facilitating the Government’s ability to participate effectively during negotiations and preparatory work for the Special Court.

As the time for signature of the Agreement is approaching, the team in Freetown has been assisting the Office of the Attorney-General in drafting implementing legislation for the Special Court Agreement and Statute. This legislation is designed to allow the authorities in Sierra Leone to both recognise and cooperate with the Court, as well as provide for other related matters. To facilitate a thorough drafting process in light of all relevant Sierra Leonean law, NPWJ incorporated a local lawyer in its team specifically for the purpose of assisting the team with drafting the legislation. It is expected that this legislation will pass through Parliament immediately upon the signing of the Agreement between the United Nations and the Government of Sierra Leone.

In addition, the NPWJ legal experts have been assisting the Attorney General with various other tasks relating to international human rights and humanitarian law as requested. While the work pertaining to the Special Court takes priority, the Government of Sierra Leone has often taken advantage of the presence of NPWJ international law experts to provide information and analyses on matters within their areas of expertise. Among these tasks is a review of the Criminal Procedure Act, 1965 (Sierra Leone) in light of international standards of due process and other guarantees contained in the Sierra Leone Constitution of 1991.

3. Advice to Sierra Leone Mission to the United Nations in New York
The NPWJ legal expert seconded to the Sierra Leone Mission in New York advised the Mission on issues arising specifically in relation to the proposed Special Court as well as international criminal justice in general. Further, the NPWJ legal expert was able to assist the Mission during meetings on Security Council Resolution 1315 (2000) and discussions on the draft Statute and Agreement regarding the Special Court. They kept in constant contact with the team in Freetown, thereby ensuring that the Mission in New York was aware of ongoing developments in the capital and was able to convey the concerns of Sierra Leone accurately and in a timely manner.

The NPWJ legal expert returned to New York in2001 to continue assisting the Sierra Leone Mission to the United Nations in negotiations about the Special Court. As the text of the draft Statute and Agreement has been substantially agreed between the Government of Sierra Leone and the United Nations, the focus in 2001 has been upon resolving practical questions and obtaining pledges for voluntary funding from member States of the United Nations. The NPWJ legal expert has represented Sierra Leone in negotiations with an expanded number of delegations, while continuing to maintain close contact with the team in Freetown, and thus keep the often delicate negotiations balanced and ensure that the concerns of Sierra Leone are not lost in the debate. The NPWJ legal expert has assisted the Mission with various other tasks relating to international human rights and humanitarian law from time to time as requested by the Mission.

In addition, the NPWJ New York office acquired the services of four interns to assist with preparations for the Lagoonda Conference, held in Freetown in February 2001, particularly in terms of compiling a list of relevant documents. One of these interns has continued working at the NWPJ on the compilation of a chronology of the conflict using open source materials, which will supplement the work being undertaken by NPWJ in Freetown (see below, 6.d. Other activities—Chronology of the conflict).

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Appendix 3—Outreach Program

The Lagoonda Conference on Accountability Mechanisms for Violations of International Humanitarian Law in Sierra Leone to discuss the accountability mechanisms intended for Sierra Leone, which was the official launch of the Outreach Program;
The Training of the Trainers seminars, which implemented a key recommendation made by Sierra Leone civil society at the Lagoonda Conference; and
The Special Court Working Group, a coalition of civil society NGOs established by NPWJ with a view to conducting public sensitisation and information about the Special Court across the country.

1. The Lagoonda Conference
The Outreach Program commenced with “The Freetown Conference on Accountability Mechanisms for Violations of International Humanitarian Law in Sierra Leone”, held in the Lagoonda Complex on 20 to 22 February 2001. The conference aimed to provide a vehicle for the exploration of mechanisms designed to provide accountability for atrocities committed in Sierra Leone during the course of the conflict, focussing on the two mechanisms envisaged for Sierra Leone (the Special Court and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission) and the interaction between those institutions. An additional intention was to explore how traditional or customary justice could be incorporated into or operate alongside those mechanisms.
The conference was attended by over 100 national and international personnel active in the fields of law, human rights and civil society. The working groups, comprised of between 15 and 22 people plus a foreign expert, met a number of times to discuss various aspects of accountability mechanisms. Following the opening ceremony and first plenary, the conference broke into five separate working groups to discuss various issues common to all accountability mechanisms, including international tribunals, truth and reconciliation commissions and national courts. These sessions were intended to get to the heart of the problems facing accountability mechanisms in Sierra Leone and devise concrete solutions for those problems, drawing from solutions adopted for other accountability mechanisms. Each working group was thus assigned one or more experts with theoretical and practical experience in accountability mechanisms in other post conflict situations to guide the working groups by highlighting the various issues involved and discussing proposed solutions, whether they had ultimately been adopted or abandoned, from other situations. As anticipated, this created a productive and interactive setting to facilitate the adoption of recommendations by participants.

Plenary discussions were held on the basis of reports from the working groups, during which time dissenting opinions were voiced and incorporated into the record. The conference adopted the recommendations of the working groups by consensus during the final plenary session. These recommendations included the holding of training workshops on the Special Court as well as the establishment of a coalition of interested Sierra Leonean NGOs to conduct the bulk of public sensitisation and information sharing about the Special Court. This concrete set of recommendations formed the basis for much of the outreach work undertaken by NPWJ in the following months, commencing with Training the Trainers seminars, as it was evident that despite a high level of interest and some general knowledge on issues of criminal justice, knowledge about the specifics of the Special Court lagged far behind knowledge about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

During the closing ceremony, speakers stressed that the most repeated message to come out of the deliberations was the need for ownership of the various accountability mechanisms by the people of Sierra Leone. It was agreed that one way of achieving this sense of ownership was to implement an effective outreach program, in order to inform the public about the nature and workings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Special Court. It was repeatedly stressed, both during the conference as well as by the closing speakers, that this must occur not only in Freetown but also in the provinces, where special efforts must be made in this regard.

A Conference Report was produced soon after the conference concluded. This report was widely distributed in Freetown and abroad, including through the NPWJ website, with particular attention being paid to key decision?makers in the United Nations and elsewhere. The report has been received with great interest within and outside Sierra Leone; for example, Justice Richard Goldstone will be using the report in his upcoming class on accountability mechanisms at NYU.

2. Training the Trainers Seminars
2.a. Training the Trainers in Freetown
The purpose of the “Training the Trainers” seminars is to present a detailed overview of the provisions of the draft Statute and Agreement for the Special Court, including a brief introduction to the purposes and principles of international humanitarian and criminal law and various issues surrounding the Special Court. The seminars are intended to implement one of the recommendations of the Lagoonda Conference, from which the singular message to emerge was the need for ownership of all accountability mechanisms for and in Sierra Leone by the people of Sierra Leone. One aspect of this is that public sensitisation and education about accountability mechanisms should be undertaken by Sierra Leoneans, in order both to enhance that ownership as well as to ensure the information is presented in the best possible way taking into account linguistic and cultural needs. The intention was to hold a number of identical workshops over a period of days, limiting the participation within each session to ensure the maximum opportunity for discussion by participants. An additional motive for the training seminars conducted in March was to identify those members of Sierra Leone civil society who were interested in establishing a “Special Court Working Group”, which would be mandated with carrying out the public sensitisation and information campaign about the Special Court.

In Freetown, the capital city, NPWJ held a total of sixteen four-hour seminars from March to June 2001, attracting a total of 313 participants, with average attendance at each seminar ranging between 15 and 20 people. Within those sessions, NPWJ held a series of ten four-hour seminars over a period of five days, with two seminars per day, from 21 to 29 March 2001 at the GGEMS Offices in Freetown and a total of six four-hour seminars in June 2001. The March sessions attracted a total of 207 participants from a diverse range of organisations and institutions, including human rights and civil society organisations, journalists and other interested individuals. The June sessions attracted a total of 106 participants from as diverse a group as the March sessions.

Within this training schedule, NPWJ has conducted “special sessions” for specific target groups, such as the staff and Commissioners of the NCDDR, CCP and NCDHR, senior journalists and editors, ex-combatants’ representatives, as well as a group of Paramount Chiefs currently residing in Freetown, given their position of importance and respect within Sierra Leonean society. One slightly different session, in that it drew on the individual experience of NPWJ staff in documenting violations of humanitarian law in Kosovo, was held for the Campaign for Good Governance (CGG) monitors. The CGG monitors conduct human rights monitoring across the country on behalf of CGG, one of the most well-established and best respected civil society organisations in Sierra Leone. NPWJ undertook this training at the request of CGG, in order to familiarise their monitors with the workings of the Special Court and to discuss the types of evidence that would be useful before the Special Court.

All sessions have been well attended and stimulated thought?provoking discussions concerning not only the material presented but also issues such as the timing of the Special Court, its aims and potential, its place within the peace process and its relationship to other methods of accountability, including the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and traditional forms of justice. A report on the Training the Trainer sessions has been prepared and circulated as part of the July 2001 status report.

2.b. Sensitisation at DDR Camps
Following discussions with NPWJ about the outreach program and the Special Court, the National Commission for Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (NCDDR) requested that NPWJ run sensitisation seminars on the Special Court in Demobilisation Centres around the country. Sierra Leone ex-combatants who join the DDR program undergo a “pre-discharge orientation program” in Demobilisation Centres. During their orientation program, ex-combatants receive basic training to assist their return to civilian life and reintegration within their communities. The orientation curriculum includes, among other thing, a military reintegration program, civic education and “DDR education”. After discharge from the Demobilisation Centres, ex combatants receive vocational training (such as carpentry, metal work, mechanics, building) followed by an apprenticeship program and assistance in job placement. Given the pertinence of the Special Court to this particular target sector (identified as such during the Lagoonda Conference and the inaugural SCWG meeting) and to ensure that it does not threaten the disarmament process, it is vital that as many ex?combatants as possible are familiar with the exact nature of the Special Court and the reasons behind its establishment.

On 2 July 2001, the Outreach team, together with three members of Sierra Leonean civil society organisations, travelled to the DDR camp at Lunsar to conduct a training seminar on the Special Court. The aim of the trip was not only to provide information about the Special Court to the ex-combatants in the camp as part of the DDR process, it was also to act as a pilot for planned trips into the provinces throughout July and as a training session for the three Sierra Leonean members of the delegation. These three people were identified both during the training seminars held in Freetown and in Special Court Working Group meetings as possible trainers themselves, who could continue the sensitisation program into the provinces.

While the NCDDR had requested NPWJ to undertake this training, in concert with general human rights training by the Human Rights Section of UNAMSIL, some concerns expressed by the ex-combatants about the content of both of these seminars has resulted in the NCDDR temporarily suspending all human rights and related training within the DDR program, both training carried out by UNAMSIL as well as that conducted by NPWJ. NPWJ remains in close contact with the staff of the NCDDR so that when the decision is taken to allow training to recommence, NPWJ will be ready to continue with the sensitisation effort at the DDR camps.

2.c. Training in the Provinces
NPWJ has taken the “Training of the Trainers” seminars into the provinces in July 2001, in order to implement the recommendation of the Lagoonda Conference to ensure that sensitisation efforts are not limited to Freetown. Training seminars were held in Bo, with a total of 89 participants across 2 sessions and in Kenema, with a total of 100 participants across 2 sessions. NPWJ also conducted training sessions in Mile 91, attracting a total of 86 participants across 2 sessions. As in Freetown, participants in the training seminars in the provinces came from a wide range of organisations and institutions, with the notable additions of representatives of the CDF and RUF. NPWJ delegated responsibility for organisation of the seminars to representatives of the Special Court Working Group, particularly the Interim Regional Coordinators, both to provide experience in organising seminars as well as to facilitate the recruitment of provincial members of the Special Court Working Group.

In comparison to the provinces, Freetown is relatively well-resourced, with an infrastructure which supports dissemination of information. This is less true of Bo and Kenema and the surrounding regions which makes it imperative that strategically identified persons receive training on the Special Court and act to disseminate this knowledge. Furthermore, it should be noted that the conflict in the provinces has generally been one long, continuous experience unlike Freetown, which witnessed intermittent episodes of violence. To the extent that domestic judicial mechanisms have been employed, they have taken place almost exclusively in Freetown. The culture of impunity is, therefore, that much more entrenched in the provinces. If the Special Court is to function successfully, and alter the domestic dynamics whereby atrocities go unaccounted for, special attention needs to be paid educating persons living in the provinces about its purpose.

The identification of persons to whom the training might most effectively be given was carried out by an assessment team, comprising the interim regional coordinators for the South, East and North. In addition, they undertook preliminary organisation in terms of arranging venues, speaking with local authorities, observing regional protocol and organising NPWJ and SCWG-SL participation in radio shows about the Special Court in each of the towns visited. The interim regional coordinators and members of the SCWG-SL Executive accompanied the NPWJ outreach programme on the training visits to Bo, Kenema and Mile 91. For immediate purposes their involvement was intended to facilitate access to local communities and assist the NPWJ outreach team in surmounting language and cultural barriers. Their involvement was also intended to secure the long-term objective of imparting training skills: they, as the Executive of the SCWG-SL, will be coordinating the majority of outreach activities around the Special Court in the future.

3. Special Court Working Group
Following another key recommendation to emerge from the Lagoonda Conference, NPWJ facilitated the establishment of a coalition of a number of Sierra Leone civil society organisations who were interested in and could play a crucial role in outreach and sensitisation. NPWJ organised a number of meetings of this coalition of interested organisations, under the name of the Special Court Working Group (SCWG), who discussed the types of messages concerning the Special Court that would need to be directed to specific groups within Sierra Leone, together with the modalities through which the sensitisation programme would be implemented. The establishment of such a coalition had been recommended by the Lagoonda Conference so that information being disseminated about the Special Court by various groups within Sierra Leone would be uniform and consistent. Thus NPWJ assisted in the establishment of the SCWG both as a means to build local capacity to conduct a full scale outreach program in the event that NPWJ leaves Sierra Leone as well as to ensure the existence of a local organisation that fulfils the requirements outlined during the Lagoonda conference with whom NPWJ could conduct outreach activities.

The first meeting of the SCWG was held on 7 April 2001 with a total of 19 members of Sierra Leonean NGOs and the staff of NPWJ acting as the Secretariat. Since then, SCWG meetings have been held once every two weeks and the number of participants in working group meetings has grown to a total of 39 members (see Appendix 1 for a full list of member organisations of the SCWG). At its inaugural meeting, the SCWG, following the recommendations from the Lagoonda Conference, formed five Sub Groups to devise methods and messages for different target groups, namely children; ex-combatants; the media; civilians and civil society organisations; and security forces. Each Sub Group, comprised of between 5 and 10 members plus at least one NPWJ staff member attending as the representative of the Secretariat, met in-between SCWG meetings to consider how best to reach their target group and how to formulate the messages in a way most easily understood by that particular target group. The Sub Groups reported back to plenary meetings of the SCWG to inform members of their work and present methods and messages for adoption. The process was ongoing throughout April to June and resulted in the adoption of a concrete set of messages which are geared towards each of the target groups in question, including some more generalised informational leaflets developed under the leadership of NPWJ, for distribution within and outside Freetown. Responding to the issue of how the activities of the SCWG will be funded, the SCWG formed a sixth Sub Group on funding. This Sub Group was mandated to explore potential sources of funding and devise a budget for the various activities submitted by each of the Sub Groups and adopted by the SCWG as a whole.

During discussions concerning future work for the SCWG, there was general consensus that in order to ensure there was a stable base from which to conduct future outreach work, there needed to be an elected Executive. Pursuant to this, on 2 June 2001, the SCWG held elections for the Steering Committee, which was mandated to look into a number of issues pertaining to the proposed Executive, specifically its mandate, composition, constitution and the rules governing its election. The Steering Committee, comprised of 6 members, presented an interim report on 16 June 2001 and negotiated the terms of the MOU with NPWJ before presenting the final documents – the Constitution, electoral rules and the MOU – to the SCWG for adoption on 30 June 2001, a meeting attended by 33 members of the SCWG. After intensive discussion and debate, with amendments to some provisions being put to the vote, the SCWG adopted all three documents by consensus. Thus on 30 June 2001, the Special Court Working Group Sierra Leone (SCWG-SL) was established as an independent legal entity. As from that time, NPWJ ceased to act as the Secretariat and instead took on the role of Election Monitors, to oversee and monitor all aspects of the elections held on 7 July 2001.

Following elections of the National Executive Committee, NPWJ continues to support the work and activities of the Working Group, both through the provision of any necessary assistance, such as the provision of office space on Pademba Road, as well as by building on the cooperative relationship already established to undertake further sensitisation activities. The SCWG-SL has been active in mobilising civil society to lobby both the Government of Sierra Leone and the United Nations on aspects of the Special Court, including the temporal jurisdiction of the Court and civil society involvement in the Planning Mission for the Special Court, due to arrive in Freetown in January 2002.

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Appendix 4--Book Donation Program

The legal profession has not escaped unscathed from the conflict that has raged within Sierra Leone for the past decade. Not only have university and other libraries lacked the resources to purchase up to date legal materials, there has been a lot of destruction, including a fire in the main Sierra Leone Court building in Freetown, that destroyed much of the archival material. The result is a legal profession lacking one of the basic necessities for its work: legal materials, which are the building blocks for a strong legal profession. In no area is the lack of legal materials more apparent than in international law, especially international humanitarian and human rights law.

Given this and the extensive network of legal professionals that NPWJ has built up over the years, NPWJ has been soliciting donations of legal materials for distribution within Sierra Leone to libraries, universities and human rights organisations. The Program so far has been a success, with materials and cash contributions being donated by a range of people and institutions, including author and barrister Geoffrey Robertson QC, the Canada Law Book Company, Penguin Books, Colombia University in New York, the World Health Organisation and the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative.

The program has, in some ways, been a victim of that success. While most donors have either shipped the books to Freetown or shipped small numbers of books to the NPWJ offices in New York, which have then been carried to Freetown by NPWJ personnel, there are currently 70 boxes of books weighing up to 30 kg each donated by Colombia University in the NPWJ offices in New York. NPWJ staff in Freetown and New York are trying to find a reasonable solution to shipping this large amount of books – in weight and volume – to Freetown as well as working on solutions of where to house the books once they arrive.

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Appendix 5—World Justice Day 2001

On Tuesday, 17 July 2001, No Peace Without Justice-Sierra Leone hosted a reception to celebrate the three-year anniversary of the adoption of the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court. The reception was scheduled to be a 2-hour event from 17.30 at the Balmaya Arts Restaurant in Congo Cross, Freetown, which finished closer to 20.30.
The response to invitations for the reception was enthusiastic, with most invitees attending. Apologies were tendered from the Hon Solomon Berewa, Attorney-General and Minister of Justice of the Republic of Sierra Leone; Zainab Bangura, Director of the Campaign for Good Governance; Ambassador Adeniji, Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Sierra Leone; and Rodolfo Mattorolo, Head of the Human Rights Section of UNAMSIL. Over fifty people attended the reception, including Ambassador Joseph Melrose, United States Ambassador to Sierra Leone; HE Andrea Reidy, Acting British High Commissioner; Mr Jeremy Tunnacliffe, Head of Delegation of the Mission of the European Commission in Sierra Leone; a representative from the Nigerian High Commission; the Director-General of the Sierra Leone Police; the Executive of the National Forum for Human Rights; the Executive of the Special Court Working Group; a number of members of the newly-elected Executive of the Sierra Leone Bar Association and a number of prominent Sierra Leonean and foreign lawyers and human rights activists.

There was a large amount of sensitisation material about both the TRC and the Special Court available for guests to peruse and take with them. The TRC information, kindly provided by UNAMSIL, included pamphlets about the TRC in English and Krio and copies of the UDHR. The material provided by NPWJ included the Special Court Times, a newsletter produced by NPWJ for free distribution around Freetown and the provinces; two leaflets containing the answers to “frequently asked questions” about the Special Court; a brief commentary about the ICC; and a brief description of NPWJ’s activities. Copies of the NPWJ Freetown Conference on Accountability Mechanisms and Training Seminar reports were also available. Without question, the most popular document of the evening was the Special Court Times, which many people suggested NPWJ make a regular publication.

Overall, the evening was a great success and provided interested people in Freetown with the opportunity to gather and talk about issues relating to accountability for violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.