CANCELLED: The International Criminal Court in Africa: Before and After the Warrant for the Arrest of President Omar Al Bashir

Featuring

Charles Villa-Vicencio

Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, Cape Town, South Africa
Visiting Professor, Conflict Resolution Programme, Georgetown University

Africa stands at the cutting edge of the international debate on transitional justice.  This summer, the African Union rejected the International Criminal Court’s warrant for the arrest of Omar Hassan Ahmad Al Bashir, President of Sudan, for war crimes and crimes against humanity.  The African Union stated that the warrant undermines peace efforts in Darfur.  This raises significant questions about the appropriateness of the ICC’s intervention in some African crises.

Charles Villa-Vicencio is the former executive director of the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, Cape Town, South Africa.  Prior to that, he served as the National Research Director in the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and as Professor of Religion and Society at the University of Cape Town.  In 1994, he was appointed a Fellow of the University of Cape Town, where he is now an emeritus professor.   

Villa-Vicencio works largely in the area of transitional justice and social transformation in South Africa.   He also has worked on transitional mechanisms and peacebuilding initiatives in Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe, and has consulted on political conflicts in the Spanish Basque country, Sri Lanka, Peru, and Colombia.

Co-sponsored by Africana Studies.

Free and open to the public. A light lunch will be available before the lecture.