Liberia Makes Further Progress Towards Establishing War Crimes Court

This post has been updated with the latest developments as at 5pm GMT on April 10, 2024.

This week, 27 of Liberia’s 29 senators voted in favor of establishing a war crimes court, with an additional senator lending his support after the vote. The proposal passed its second vote within a month, and it now awaits final approval from Liberian President Joseph Boakai.

“I am pleased to announce that, Twenty-eight (28) of the Twenty-nine (29) senators have signed a resolution endorsing the establishment of the war and economic Crimes courts in Liberia,” Senate President Nyonblee Karnga-Lawrence wrote in a Facebook post. “We believe this decision will bring an end to the perception in the public that members of The Liberian Senate are against establishing war and economic crimes court.”

Over 14 years after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia (TRC) recommended the establishment of an Extraordinary Criminal Court, Liberia’s lower house has adopted the resolution for the opening of a war and economic crimes court.

About two-thirds of the representatives voted in favor of the war crimes court being set up, over two decades after the end of two civil war periods that claimed the lives of more than 200,000 people and displaced millions. In its December 2009 report, the TRC recommended that the war crimes court be set up in order to prosecute individuals accused of serious human rights violations and humanitarian laws violations.

For years, the adoption of the resolution had stalled, due to many of the accused warlords still being influential in their local communities and, by extension, Liberian politics. In the now-historic vote, 42 of the 73 lower house representatives signed the resolution in favor of the war crimes court.

“Recognizing that economic crimes are the progenitor of war crimes, call for legislative action to establish an Economic Crimes Court for the swift and speedy trial of corruption and economic crimes,” the house’s resolution states.

"The resolution has been passed, and justice for the Liberian people has finally arrived," Jonathan Fonatti Koffa, speaker of the lower house, told the press after the vote. Representatives from Nimba County didn’t share Koffa and most of their colleagues’ enthusiasm, voting against the resolution. Businessman Musa Bility, who recently won a seat from the county, abstained from the vote.

Many observers expected Nimba County representatives to vote against the resolution, as they’re reportedly allied with Prince Johnson, a long-term senator from Nimba and a former warlord. During the first civil war from 1989 to 1997, Johnson infamously captured, tortured and executed then-president Samuel Doe, as the leader of the factional armed group, Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL).

Johnson fled to Nigeria in 1992, returning back to Liberia after the second civil war in 2004. He won a senatorial seat in 2006 and was recently re-elected last year. In its 2009 report, the TRC included Johnson in its list of 50 people who should be barred from holding office for 30 years, a resolution that was never implemented. If the war crimes court is constituted, Johnson will inevitably be one of those to face prosecution, although he claims he’s covered by an immunity clause signed by Liberia’s legislature in 2003, as part of peace treaties for the end of the second civil war.

The lower house’s resolution will move on to the senate for further deliberations and a vote, before it lands on the desk of new Liberian president, Joseph Boakai, whose campaign promises included working towards societal “peace and reconciliation” and justice for victims of the war crimes during the civil war.