The big fish won't fry themselves: Criminal accountability for post-election violence in Kenya

Abstract

This article examines the demand for criminal accountability for the atrocities committed after Kenya's contested December 2007 elections. It explains why, despite strong popular desire for accountability through prosecutions and the threat of and actual International Criminal Court (ICC) involvement, the government has failed to take concrete steps to try those believed primarily responsible. The article argues that the fundamental reason why the government has not initiated systematic prosecutions in regular domestic courts – or created, as promised, a hybrid national/international tribunal – is that those in charge of establishing these processes are, in many cases, those whom it would prosecute or their close allies. A hybrid tribunal now seems unlikely and credible national trials are an improbable alternative, though there are some reasons to be more optimistic following the new constitution of 2010. For the time being only international justice, which is beyond the...