Human Rights Law Review Advance Access originally published online on November 1, 2005
Human Rights Law Review 2005 5(2):271-309; doi:10.1093/hrlr/ngi016
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Amnesties in International Law: The Experience of the Special Court for Sierra Leone
* Lecturer, Department of Law, University of Durham. I would like to thank Colin Warbrick, Michael Bohlander and Jamie Glister for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper
The Special Court for Sierra Leone, a hybrid criminal tribunal established to try persons accused of serious crimes during the conflict in Sierra Leone, has recently commenced its judicial operations. Several of the preliminary issues raised by various defendants have required the Court to examine the validity of the amnesty granted to combatants by the Lomé Peace Agreement and the amnesty's impact upon the Court's jurisdiction to try the defendants. This article examines the decisions of the Court on the amnesty issue and evaluates the jurisprudence of the Court with reference to the current status of amnesties in international law.