MONROVIA, Liberia— Liberia took a major step to end war time impunity this month when President Joseph Boakai issued an executive order to establish an office for a war crimes court to try those “bearing the greatest responsibility” for atrocities in civil wars that ended in 2003 and left 250,000 people dead.
By Anthony Stephens with New Narratives
As advocates celebrated the court, they have now turned to key questions: How will the office work? What is the timing for a court? And, most importantly, who will lead it? Many factions are lobbying, but advocates appear united on one thing:
“We have agreed, along with the United States and other international partners, that the court will be Liberian-led and have advised the Liberian Government to have the Court based on Liberian soil,” said Hassan Bility, Director of the Liberian based Global Justice and Research Project, which together with its Swiss partner, Civitas Maxima, has unearthed evidence that led to prosecutions of accused perpetrators in European and American courts. He warned opponents not to risk U.S. anger by putting roadblocks in the way of a court. “We hope that the Liberian Legislature will not erect unnecessary hurdles. Those intending to disrupt this effort may face some form of sanctions.”
The office for the court will be headed by an executive director, who “shall be an astute lawyer of impeccable character,” according to the declaration. A search is underway for that leader. Court advocates were divided over who that person should be. All refused to go on record because they could be “consulted by the president’s office on the matter.” But they told Front Page Africa/New Narratives that Cllr. Tiawan Gongloe, a former president of the Liberian National Bar Association, renowned human rights lawyer and 2023 presidential candidate is a front runner.
“Gongloe is better suited than any person,” one advocate said. “We want someone known with a track record and with trust.”
Also, among those named are: Cllr. Dr. Jallah A. Barbue, Dean of the School of Law at the University of Liberia, ex-chair of a special committee of the Bar that drafted the bill for a war crimes court and a 2017 presidential candidate; Cllr. T. Negbalee Warner, Barbue’s predecessor at the law school; Cllr. Frances Johnson Allison, a former Liberian Chief Justice, and Cllr. Jerome Verdier, former Chairman of Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission who now lives in the U.S. Legal scholars said whoever is chosen will determine the model, scope, and duration of the courts, their set up procedures and mechanisms. The Liberian government has allocated an initial $US500,000 to the office. No start date has been set.
One big question is funding. In a 2022 visit to Liberia Beth Van Schaack, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice, committed support for the court saying, “the US government is willing to support through technical and financial means to establish a tribunal.” US government sources confirmed that no dollar amount has been discussed.
Experts say international donors will be resistant to fork out anything like the blown out $US300 million cost of the Special Court for Sierra Leone. They will be looking at other models, including the lower cost trial of Hissène Habre, the former Chadian dictator, in Senegal in 2016. The special tribunal created by the African Union under a deal with Senegal was a ‘hybrid’ court that blended international and national justice systems. The court, trying just one defendant, cost less than $US12m. A Gambian court, moving towards trials of officials under former dictator Yahya Jammeh and perhaps Jammeh himself, is another model.
One big factor in cost will be how many people are tried. The TRC report recommended the prosecution of 116 “Most Notorious Perpetrators” but the number to face trial will likely be far fewer. The Sierra Leone Special Court indicted 13 alleged perpetrators, including former Liberian president Charles Taylor. Will Taylor, serving a 50-year prison sentence in the United Kingdom for his role in Sierra Leone, be tried? What about others who have been convicted by courts in the United States and Europe? Extraditions and security involved in such exercises will add to costs.

International donors are discussing a starting figure of at least $US150m. That might be a hard sell as voters in European nations, traditional backers of these trials, increasingly support populist leaders who are less interested in Africa. Another factor will be the U.S. presidential elections in November. While the Biden administration has given strong backing to Liberia’s transitional justice process it is not clear a second Trump administration would do the same. The U.S. November election date might force some urgency on the part of Liberian court proponents.
The court may also face challenges indicting and detaining sitting legislators such as Senator Prince Johnson who tops the TRC list of perpetrators. Bility said indictments will only come after new investigations by investigators of the court though they may use evidence gathered by the TRC and international trials. But he expects that once the case is made indictees will be detained.
“They will be in detention while their prosecutions are going on, after their arrest, based on credible and internationally standardized evidence. There are examples like the courts for Rwanda, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Yugoslavia,” said Bility. He said once the court is established the investigations will take time. “It will take at least six months to have the first person on trial. There’s zero evidence against anybody accused by the TRC now. Everything will have to start over.”
The hybrid nature of the court is essential because many of the crimes to be tried by Liberia’s court are crimes in international law that are not covered by domestic laws, said Tenneh B. Dalieh Tehoungue, a PhD candidate researching universal jurisdiction, transitional justice, peacebuilding, and reconciliation at the Dublin City University in Ireland.
“Liberia is a signatory to the Geneva conventions, the Rome Statute,” said Tehoungue. “Liberia, with its state obligations, can give the authority to the court to adjudicate all international crimes. The crimes that are going to be admissible before the court are war crimes and crimes against humanity. We are speaking of massacres, rape as a weapon of mass destruction, castration of young men and women. You cannot classify them as national crimes that should be dealt with by national processes.”

Meanwhile the campaigners who have mounted the long battle to bring a court to fruition have been in the United States courting support at the State Department and Congress. The message has been clear: given the United States’ long and close ties to Liberia the country has a moral and strategic interest in seeing justice happen to set the struggling nation on a new path that will bolster accountability and the rule of law.

Adama Dempster, also in Washington D.C. for meetings with Amb. Van Schaack and other U.S. State Department and congressional leaders, praised the U.S. for supporting the court. He also challenged President Boakai “to write to the United Nations requesting assistance as a state party in keeping with its international human rights obligations, the international community, African Union and Economic Community of West African States to provide assistance to Liberia in the lead up to setting up the court.”
John Stewart, who served as a commissioner for Liberia’s TRC, said by WhatsApp that the court “means vindication that our consistent and persistent efforts to keep alive hopes for justice and accountability have not gone in vain.”
This was a collaboration with New Narratives as part of the West Africa Justice Reporting Project. Funding was provided by the Swedish Embassy in Liberia. The funder had no say in the story’s content.