Social Science Research Council

Sentiment and intuition, unlike the mysticism of the ‘cave man’, are the germs of conscience. I choose to use them to predict the obvious, the epitome of the process of a faltering state. I think this piece could contribute to a reading of how the NIF not only failed in its own designs, but also [...]

Those of us who daily face the victims of Darfur fail to explain how would the indictment of President Al-Bashir by the ICC Luis Moreno-Ocampo bring more sufferings to Darfurians? We also fail when some people keep imploring us to believe that the arrest warrant on its own will bring them peace and justice when [...]

Northern Kordofan does not qualify for a war of liberation, now. But in light of the gravity and importance of the situation there, I would like to ink a few points to draw more attention to Northern Kordofan.
Kordofan is the strategic geographical center of Sudan. However, the JEM Commander-in-Chief (Khalil Ibrahim) did not choose to [...]

Many commentators have questioned why the Prosecutor of the ICC, Luis Moreno Ocampo, is pursuing Bashir, given the unlikelihood of ever arresting him. To understand what the Prosecutor hopes to gain from this move, we should interpret it in the wider context of the ICC’s prosecutorial strategy to date. In particular, we should focus on [...]

The question arises whether an international criminal tribunal can indict, issue arrest warrants for, or prosecute, a serving head of State. It is generally accepted that under international law, serving heads of State are immune from the jurisdiction of other States. Therefore they are not subject to the arrest or criminal processes of other States. [...]

The International Criminal Court faces political realities today that were not anticipated when the Rome Statute was so laboriously negotiated a decade ago. It’s commonly the case that an international institution develops in ways that its founders didn’t foresee—the UN itself is a prime example. While the immediate challenge to the ICC derives from Chief [...]

Developments in international justice have filled the papers in recent weeks, with the capture of Serbia’s Radovan Karadžić and the charges leveled against Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir. Far from this spotlight, former DR Congolese rebel leader and vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo has moved from arrest to Belgian jail to the custody of the International Criminal [...]

Apropos of Ibrahim Adam’s call to increase foreign direct investment in Sudan, it’s worth considering whether a strategy, pushed by American divestment activists, that bringing firms to the negotiating table offers a more productive soft power strategy than sanctions. In my view, there is a small chance that it does.
What began as a push by [...]

On August 14th in this space, Ibrahim Adam argued for the removal of United States sanctions and an end to the international targeted divestment campaign meant to turn the screws on Khartoum. The argument is convincing only if you accept Mr. Adam’s implied premises: that the war in Darfur is merely a result of economic [...]

The implementation of the CPA in Southern Kordofan has been subject to numerous delays in many different areas. The most significant delays have been around the formation of the state government and the passing of the state constitution. The lack of genuine integration between the NCP and the SPLM in the state government is the [...]