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Lubanga Trial

Backgrounder: victim's participation at the ICC

Victims_participation 14 September 2010 -The victims' right to participate in international criminal proceedings is a unique aspect of the Rome Statute. It distinguishes the International Criminal Court from other ad hoc tribunals.

For the first time in the history of international criminal justice, victims have become part of the judicial process, with the ability to offer testimony as witnesses and to exercise their right to reparation for their suffering.

The Lubanga trial, as the first case before the ICC, lays the foundation for this novel scheme.

Produced in partnership with 3 Generations

Lubanga Chronicles

The 'Lubanga Chronicles' document the first ever trial at the International Criminal Court. On 26 January 2009, the Chief Prosecutor announced to the Judges that his team would prove that between 2002 and 2003, Thomas Lubanga Dyilo recruited children under the age of 15 as soldiers for his political military movement, the Union des Patriotes Congolais (UPC), and its armed militia the Forces Patriotiques pour la Liberation du Congo (FPLC). On this day the ICC made a powerful statement: recruiting children to fight is a war crime which will be prosecuted and punished.

Since the trial started, thirty witnesses have testified before this Court: former child soldiers, experts, military commanders, social workers, UN staff. All of them came to The Hague with the purpose of telling this Court what happened in Ituri, a remote North-Eastern province of the Democratic Republic of Congo. They told of how children were abducted and transported to military camps; how they were trained to kill; how they were punished; how they were raped. This trial presents tales of human suffering but also stories of survival and hope.

Created by Sheila Vélez of the Aegis Trust, together with 3 Generations. Read more...