Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2007

Abstract

This paper examines the legality of power-sharing in Africa with specific reference to the Accra and Lome accords, which brought about a fragile cessation of the conflicts in Liberian and Sierra Leone, respectively. It examines the future of international criminal law vis-a-vis power-sharing by prospectively examining gaps in state practice and rules that arguably permit the "crime of illegal peace" by insurrectionists, political elites, and moral guarantors. When warlords use violence to coerce democratically constituted governments to share power, does power-sharing simply become a euphemism for "guns for jobs"? Which legal rules, if any, govern peace agreements in internal conflicts? Specifically, which rules regulate power-sharing? Are the aims of peace, justice, and adherence to the rule of law attainable, let alone compatible, with coerced political transitions where warlords violently force democratically constituted or legitimate governments to share power? Should international law criminalize political elites that share power with warlords and rebels that have committed gross human rights and humanitarian law violations?

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