Attachments
Introduction
SOAS Centre for Human Rights Law, ACCESS, and REDRESS submit this report to the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan (‘Sudan FFM’). The report addresses four interrelated points contained in the Call for Submissions and resolution A/HRC/RES/54/2 (2023) which sets out the mandate for the Sudan FFM, (1) namely:
Call for Submissions:
- recommendations on measures of prevention, protection, and reparation. These could include amongst others, policy and normative measures, accountability measures with a view to avoiding and ending impunity for any individual involved in ordering, facilitating, or perpetrating crimes under international law, as well as reparations measures for victims and survivors and their families; and
- recommendations on measures to be taken by third States, multilateral institutions, companies, and the private sector to increase human rights protections and the promotion of equality, truth, justice and reparations.
Sudan FFM mandate:
- to investigate and establish the facts, circumstances and root causes of all alleged human rights violations and abuses and violations of international humanitarian law; and
- to make recommendations, in particular on accountability measures, with a view to ending impunity and addressing its root causes, and ensuring accountability, including, as appropriate, individual criminal responsibility, and access to justice for victims.
This report was prepared on the basis of the authors' and organisations’ long-standing expertise and their experience of working on Sudan. The methodology includes desk research into opensource academic, NGO, media and social media resources, up until 27 June 2024. On 7 June 2024, REDRESS convened a hybrid roundtable of Sudanese legal experts and practitioners to gather oral input on the main findings and recommendations. This input is not directly referenced in the report but triggered further research and reflection that served to refine the report.
The report builds on over two decades of engagement, including law reform advocacy and litigation, particularly in cases of torture before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, as well as research on justice for serious human rights violations in Sudan.(2) It identifies the root causes of human rights violations and impunity in Sudan, which it understands as the social relations and structures in a wide sense. (3) They encompass political, legal, social, economic, and cultural factors that have engendered violence and a lack of accountability therefor.
Doing so is a complex undertaking, given the multiplicity of explanatory factors, and the timeframe, with many of Sudan’s current challenges having their origins in colonial relations.(4) The causes contributing to the ongoing armed conflict can primarily be tracked back to more recent developments, beginning with the military coup in June 1989. This coup brought the regime of the then President Omar al-Bashir to power for almost 30 years – a period characterised by a combination of multiple armed conflicts and serious human rights violations(5) as well as an autocratic Islamist regime. Notable peace agreements in the NorthSouth, East, Blue Nile, South Kordofan and Darfur conflicts during this period did not stem but rather fuelled the prevailing logic of recourse to violence as the principal means of doing politics,(6) whereby violations have been met with near total impunity. Following al-Bashir’s ouster, the transitional period beginning in July 2019 intensified existing fault lines. The December 2018 revolution and planned transition to a democratic, civilian rule challenged the hegemonic position and interests of a series of actors in Sudan and the region. The revolution brought with it new civic movements, youth groups and political dynamics whose popularity was seen as a real threat by traditional forces and external actors. These forces reacted to this challenge with customary violence and ultimately turned on each other.
(1) UN Human Rights Council, Responding to the human rights and humanitarian crisis caused by the ongoing armed conflict in the Sudan, A/HRC/RES/54/2 (2023)
(2) See REDRESS publications from 2003 to date (available here), including REDRESS and SOAS Centre for Human Rights Law, Ruining a Country, Devastating Its People: Accountability for serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in Sudan since 15 April 2023 (September 2023); Lutz Oette (ed), Criminal Law Reform and Transitional Justice: Human Rights Perspectives for Sudan (Ashgate 2011); Lutz Oette and Mohamed Abdelsalam Babiker (eds), Constitution-making and human rights in the Sudans (Routledge 2019).
(3) Eric T. Hoddy and Paul Gready, ‘From agency to root causes: addressing structural barriers to transformative justice in transitional and post-conflict settings’ (2000) 15 Contemporary Social Science 561.
(4) See African Union (‘AU’), Report of the African Union High-Level Panel on Darfur, PSC/AHC/2(CCVII) (2009), particularly para 49; further Lutz Oette, ”Power, conflict and human rights in Sudan” in Oette and Babiker, supra note 2, at 15, 19-21.
(5) Human Rights Watch/Africa, Behind the Red Line: Political Repression in Sudan (1996); Amin M. Medani, Crimes against International Humanitarian Law in Sudan: 1989-2000 (Dar El Mostaqbal El Arabi, 2001); UN, Report of the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur to the United Nations Secretary-General (2005); see additionally reports by the UN Human Rights Council special procedure mandate holders on Sudan, the reports by the UN Secretary-General on Darfur, the reports of the Panel of Experts on Sudan, the concluding observations of the UN human rights treaty bodies on Sudan, the jurisprudence of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights on cases against Sudan, and the reports by NGOs, such as the African Centre for Peace and Justice Studies, Strategic Initiative in the Horn of Africa (SIHA Network), and REDRESS on human rights violations in Sudan.
(6) Sharath Srinivasan, When Peace Kills Politics: International Intervention and Unending Wars in the Sudans (Hurst 2021).