Introduction On December 14, 2016, South Sudan’s President, Salva Kiir Mayardit, declared the National Dialogue (ND) process and appointed eminent personalities and civil society representatives to lead it. At the time, the second spell of the civil conflict was raging in parts of Upper Nile, Equatoria, and Bahr el Ghazal regions. Numerous attempts by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) to salvage the 2015 Agreement for the Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan (ARCSS) proved…
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CSRF Research Repository
The CSRF Research Repository aims to support greater contextual knowledge for policy makers, programme managers, and implementers by providing a searchable repository of research, analysis, and resources, and providing periodic updates on new research and analysis.
Summary South Sudan’s National Security Service (NSS) was established in 2011, after the country gained independence. The 2011 Transitional Constitution of the Republic of South Sudan, mandates the NSS to collect information, conduct analysis, and advise relevant authorities. But since its establishment, the NSS has gone much further than merely collecting information. Within months of its establishment, its agents were arresting and imprisoning journalists, government critics and others, and conducting physical and telephonic surveillance. Today,…
Introduction On August 25, Transitional Justice Working Group of South Sudan, Human Rights Watch, and Institute for Security Studies held a webinar for the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council (PSC) members and other officials to discuss the urgency for the establishment of the AU Hybrid Court for South Sudan, as a key factor toensuring long term stability and accountability for serious crimes in South Sudan. The initiative came on the heels of a…
Abstract Background: Despite high rates of violence against women and girls (VAWG) in conflict and humanitariancontexts, many survivors do not tell anyone about their experience or seek help from support r services (e.g. health, legal, psychosocial support, police). Methods: This paper examines disclosure and help seeking behaviours of survivors of non-partner sexual violence (NPSV) and intimate partner violence (IPV) among women and girls aged 15–64 from three sites in South Sudan. It seeks to understand…
Introduction Transitional Justice Mechanisms, including the establishment of a Hybrid Court for South Sudan (HCSS), were incorporated as part of the September 2018 Revitalised Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS). Chapter Five of the R-ARCSS was a blueprint for the state to deal with its past, address impunity, and to foster state stability and peace. However, the political and military elites continue to resist the establishment of the HCSS because…
The horrific violations committed in South Sudan’s civil war led to the establishment of mechanisms ensuring the prosecution of serious crimes and reconciliation within communities shattered by war. Through a peace deal, three mutually supportive but independent institutions of transitional justice were formed: The Commission for Truth, Reconciliation and Healing, The Hybrid Court for South Sudan and The Compensation and Reparation Authority. This article examines the extent to which these mechanisms can achieve their respective…
Over the past decade, a body of scholarship on civilian self-protection (CSP) has emerged, advancing understandings of civilian agency in war. In this article, the authors argue that CSP has been conceptualized in a narrow manner, reflecting the nascent status of the field. Scholars have focused on responses to threats directly related to the dynamics of conflict, physical in nature, and caused by the presence of armed groups. Using the case study of the Protection…
During an outbreak of violence in July 2016, a South Sudanese journalist was killed and international aid workers were brutally raped by government soldiers at the Terrain compound in South Sudan. Following intense international pressure, 11 soldiers were found guilty of various crimes by a specially created military court martial in 2018. As the first widely reported case in which perpetrators of conflict-related sexual violence were held accountable in South Sudan, this verdict is an…
Abstract In recent years, the transitional justice framework has expanded to include a broader notion of transformative justice, which strives for socio-political reform in addition to legal accountability. Over the course of two civil wars, Sudan has grappled with various attempts at transition and transformation with mixed results. Though the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement brought an end to decades of North–South conflict, South Sudan’s subsequent descent into civil war has been characterised by a flawed…
Looking through the lens of disputes and their resolution, this article examines the efforts undertaken by refugees to guarantee peaceful coexistence within and around settlements in northern Uganda. Based on extensive fieldwork, the authors examine which disputes occur within and around the settlements and which actors intervene to mediate and solve them. They identify a hierarchy among the different formal and informal actors involved in the resolution of disputes and show how refugee leaders operate…
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