Justice in Sudan cannot wait for the war to end
Planning a comprehensive, nationally grounded transitional justice process for Sudan must start sooner rather than later.
Today, 15 April, Sudan enters its fourth year of war. The conflict is part of a longer pattern of authoritarian governance, militarisation and repeated failures to reckon with past abuses. The country’s 70-year history has seen successive cycles of conflict, political transitions and peace negotiations in which transitional justice was either ignored or relegated to the periphery.
After Omar al-Bashir was deposed in 2019, there was some hope that a civilian-led government would advance transitional justice. The August 2019 Constitutional Charter and the 2020 Juba Peace Agreement referred to justice and accountability as key to a successful transition.
In November 2019, the transitional government created a committee to dismantle Bashir’s 30-year regime and address grand corruption. The committee was touted as a way to ensure accountability and justice, but these efforts didn’t evolve into a coherent transitional justice strategy. Instead, they became increasingly entangled in political struggles over power and state restructuring.
The committee’s work stopped in 2021, when General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan seized power in a coup. The committee resumed its work earlier this year, despite the ongoing civil war between al-Burhan’s Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
The longer the war lasts, the more atrocities occur. Reckoning with these atrocities – and those predating the war – will be essential, and transitional justice is key to ensuring accountability and laying the foundations for sustainable peace.
Powerful actors may advocate a 'peace first' approach that sidelines transitional justice
As the war escalates, powerful actors negotiating an end to the war may advocate a ‘peace first’ approach that sidelines transitional justice. This would create space for impunity, increase the likelihood of renewed conflict, and undermine existing continental standards.
It would also contradict the principles articulated in the African Union Transitional Justice Policy (AUTJP) and run counter to recent African experiences where transitional justice considerations have been incorporated into peace processes. These include Ethiopia’s Pretoria Agreement and South Sudan’s Revitalised Peace Agreement.
Sudan requires a comprehensive, nationally grounded, victim-centred transitional justice process that starts before the war ends. Such a process should consider the broader political transition and peacebuilding efforts, address atrocity crimes and the structural drivers of conflict, and avoid repeating the implementation failures of previous agreements.
This won’t be easy.
To be comprehensive, the process needs a multi-pillar transitional justice framework encompassing truth-seeking, criminal accountability, reparations, institutional reform and guarantees of non-recurrence. Decades of conflict, including now, have produced profound trauma in Sudan that requires mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) to be recognised as a distinct pillar.
Comprehensiveness also requires expanding the temporal and substantive scope of justice beyond the current war. Addressing the broader historical patterns of abuse, crime and violence, and structural inequalities that have fuelled recurring cycles of violence, is critical to break the cycle.
Institute for Security Studies research on considerations for a workable transitional justice process in Sudan shows that preparation for designing the process can begin immediately and lay the groundwork. However, the necessary institutional framework and full implementation of transitional justice still need the war to end.
Trauma support does not need to wait for hostilities to end
Embedding transitional justice into ceasefire and peace negotiations can serve a dual purpose. It can ensure that accountability, victim recognition and structural reform are not sidelined in the political settlement; and it can guide the design and implementation of Sudan’s post-conflict transition.
Of the transitional justice framework’s pillars, MHPSS should start immediately. Trauma support does not need to wait for hostilities to end or a full transitional justice framework to be established. As a less politically sensitive measure, implementing it early can help prepare victims and communities to participate in consultations and future justice processes.
Once a transitional justice process is in place, victims’ meaningful participation across all pillars is critical. In Sudan’s criminal justice system, victims have largely been treated as witnesses rather than participants. Establishing the necessary transitional justice structures enabling holistic victim participation can begin now.
Critically, transitional justice for Sudan must be driven by the Sudanese people – ensuring national ownership and contextual grounding. This requires acknowledging the multiple layers of Sudan’s conflict dynamics. Political tensions operate differently at the national level, across regions, and within local communities. To succeed, the process must engage with Sudan’s diverse society.
It must include meaningful participation by the people – civil society actors, victims, community leaders and the Sudanese diaspora. An inclusive approach would reduce the risk that transitional justice is captured by political elites, technocratic actors, or armed groups claiming to represent communities without genuine accountability.
The framework design should include broad public consultation to ensure justice mechanisms reflect the priorities of affected communities and inform the design of reparations programmes, truth-seeking initiatives, accountability mechanisms, and guarantees of non-recurrence.
Consultations shouldn't be a 'check-box' exercise – continuous dialogue with victims is essential
While the policy framework itself may only be feasible after the war ends, different forms of consultation can begin now. Household surveys could form part of a public consultation. Precedents exist in other contexts. In Ethiopia, the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative conducted the 2022-2023 survey, gathering public views on transitional justice while the Tigray conflict was still underway.
With diaspora and refugee communities outside Sudan, more focused dialogue and consultations may be possible. These could be organised by Sudanese diaspora networks or international organisations specialising in public perception studies. By informing the design of Sudan’s transitional justice framework, these consultations could ensure that armed actors don’t exclude transitional justice from political settlements.
Consultations shouldn’t be a ‘check-box’ exercise. Continuous dialogue with victims and affected communities ensures a participatory approach essential to sustaining public legitimacy and maintaining societal support.
Much of the focus is on the seemingly unending war. Efforts should be geared towards ending the conflict for good and crafting a sustainable, inclusive peace. A forward-looking plan incorporating transitional justice will help ensure failures of past transitions are not repeated.
Guided by consultations, Sudanese actors will be central to these efforts – both within and out of Sudan.
Read the full ISS report on ‘Considerations for a workable transitional justice process for Sudan’ here.
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