Rebranding the State: Uganda's Strategic Use of the International Criminal Court

Abstract

When governments invite the International Criminal Court (ICC) to conduct investigations within their own borders, they seem to indicate acceptance of global norms of accountability for wartime atrocities. The first of these self‐referrals came from Uganda, whose government requested investigation into its conflict with the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a conflict within which it, too, committed large‐scale human rights violations. This article argues that Uganda used the ICC to help solve a problem faced by many of the world's least powerful states, whose domestic politics are often structured through patron–client networks. Their rulers need to distribute basic state resources, including physical protection, to loyal clients without alienating donors who demand provision of these same resources by right to all citizens. By inviting external scrutiny and manipulating the investigative process, the Ugandan government received an international seal of approval for practices that the ICC would normally punish. This strategy has system‐wide consequences in that repeated mislabelling of rights violations as compliant with international norms causes the meaning of compliance to become incoherent, and norms are less able to constrain the behaviour of all states in the long run.

Arbitrary States

“…Museveni immediately began implementing political and economic reforms packaged as liberal and democratic initiatives. However, in practice, such reforms further centralized power and consolidated Museveni's control, undermining as much as possible other autonomous centres of authority, whether civil, economic, political, or traditional (Fisher 2014b;Freeland 2015;Makara et al 2009). Among these strategies was an early policy of 'no-party' democracy, in which the only mode of political organization would be Museveni's NRM.…”

An assemblage approach to liquid warfare: AFRICOM and the ‘hunt’ for Joseph Kony

“…Such strategies include the careful restricting of movement by US diplomats and analysts in the country. The regime also made sure that after it referred the case of Uganda to the ICC, the Court did not investigate the crimes committed by the Ugandan military throughout the conflict ( Freeland, 2015 ). Moreover, members of Invisible Children and The Resolve revealed in interviews that critical views of the role of the Ugandan army in the conflict fell on deaf ears.…”

“…Second, as explained, the hunt for Kony legitimized sending Ugandan troops into neighbouring countries, where interventions have led to massive capture of resources. Third, the ‘counter-LRA operations’ earned at least US$30 million annually for the Ugandan military, an institution that figures as a key power-base for the Museveni regime ( Freeland, 2015 : 307). The AU, another military contributor to the Kony assemblage, was keen to (re)position itself as a regional conflict-solving mechanism (Interview 3).…”

The Government Has Long Hands: Institutionalized Arbitrariness and Local Security Initiatives in Northern Uganda

“…Decades of research on the Ugandan state have produced theories that could explain the presence of multiple, diverse and incoherent security actors, as well as the unpredictability that accompanies them. These studies, conducted in different areas of the country and throughout the conflict between the Government of Uganda and the LRA (at its peak from 2000 to 2005 and in its subsequent decline), describe the Ugandan state as pathologically weak (Reinikka and Svensson, ); wilfully absent (Jones, ); overrun or marginalized by international intervention and aid (Allen, ; Branch, ); early in the process of state consolidation (Björkman and Svensson, ); maintaining a system of corrupt neo‐patrimonialism (Freeland, ; Mwenda and Tangri, ); or employing indirect rule (Finnström, ; Mamdani, ). These theories understand the state as either consolidated or unconsolidated and centralized or decentralized.…”