Identifying and Countering Terrorist Crimes within the Framework of the Provisions of the Annex to the Statute of the Court of Africa

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Assistant Professor at Department of Law, Faculty of Economic and Administrative Sciences, Arak University, Iran

Abstract

The African continent, for reasons such as ignorance, sectarianism, political and economic changes, the absence of a national government, the spread of corruption, etc., has always been prone to the emergence of terrorist groups and non-state actors in creating insecurity. A quarter of the world average terrorist violence occurs in Africa; because terrorist groups are active in half of African countries. therefore, despite the ratification of several documents by the international community and creating structures in the framework of Rome Statute for establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and also establishment of case and complex international criminal courts, the legal mechanisms of these courts was not somehow effective to counter international crimes in the African continent by implementing the Jurisdiction of ICC; because the position of the court to deal with crimes under jurisdiction, faced the African governments with challenges, which in many years and recent decades caused non-cooperation, threatened to leave or resign from the court with the claim of not considering the immunity of high-ranking heads of government, as well as discriminatory proceedings in the jurisdiction of the court. Therefore, the non-cooperation of African governments with the court led to the establishment of the African Court and the addition of the "Malabo" document to it in 2014, which according to Article "28F" of the annexed document to the statute of the African Court, dealing with terrorist crimes was included in the jurisdiction of the African Court. Therefore, in order to identify the scope of the Court's jurisdiction, while studying the attitude of the Additional Document in the evaluation of terrorist crimes, this article evaluates the challenges facing the African Court in legal achievements according to the framework of the Additional Document. [English]

Keywords


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