Freida M'Cormack

This paper explores the prospects of complementary rather than competitive dispute resolution and justice systems in Liberia, where the formal system is under-resourced, and informal and traditional systems retain their significance. It specifically considers women’s access to justice in relation to sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), which remains prevalent in the postconflict period, and in the context of a highly hybridised justice system. Using extensive literature review, structured and unstructured interviews and participant observation, the paper maps this hybridity and identifies the relative strengths and weaknesses of the respective systems. While the formal system has made great progress in reforming laws and institutions, and putting policies in place to successfully prosecute SGBV crimes, inadequate implementation, structural constraints, corruption and lack of resources continue to constrain action. Informal and traditional systems are widely considered more acces...

The Mano River sub-region, which includes Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Cote d’Ivoire, has experienced decades of violent upheavals and political instability. This notably includes civil wars in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Cote d’Ivoire. While these have generally been analysed as a series of discrete wars, some specialists have interpreted them as part of a regional conflict system; indeed, the World Bank has referred to a ‘Mano River Basin conflict system’. There have been many analyses of regional conflict systems in other parts of the world. Several of these regional conflict studies highlight commonalities, including: the prominence of transnational political, economic, military and social networks; private entrepreneurs of violence; transborder kinship of identity groups; and massive refugee flows. Another commonality throughout these analyses is that private, local and transnational actors play a more important role in this type of conflict than in ‘traditional’ intra- and...

This thesis provides insights into approaches to regional peacebuilding with reference to the Mano Union River region of West Africa, comprising Liberia, Sierra Leone, Cote d’Ivoire and Guinea. Using the case of the interrelated conflicts in these countries, particularly of regional fighters that fought in two or more countries, it investigates the constraints of conventional peacebuilding theory and practice in addressing regional conflict. Drawing largely on a constructivist International Relations approach, it argues that state-centred perspectives of conflict and peacebuilding, undertaken by institutions made rigid by ritualised practice, preclude an understanding of cross-border conflicts as localised conflicts, within the framing of a micro-region, and also block their effective engagement with the narratives articulated by combatants about their motivations for participating in cross-border conflict. Fieldwork was largely undertaken in Liberia, with the analysis supported by ...

The Study of Sovereignty, Intervention and Peace Operations in International Relations Analysing a Moving Target: Sovereignty, a Complex Concept Intervention, Justifications and Interpretations: The Case of ECOWAS in Liberia Sanctions, Justifications and Reactions: The Case of the Regional Initiative in Burundi Intervention, Justifications and Interpretations: The Case of SADC in Congo Capacity-Building and Local Ownership: Indicators of Sovereignty? (De)Stabilization - So What?: An Analysis of the Political Consequences of the Interventions on a Regional and International Level Concluding Remarks

Most, if not all, modern African states have pluralistic justice and security systems, shaped by colonial intervention and post-colonial compromise. As such, Liberia is not unique. What potentially sets it apart, however, is its peculiar history, stemming from AmericoLiberian colonisation and settlement that has resulted in a three-fold system, of a formal justice system, modelled on that of the USA, a customary legal system mostly worked through Chief’s (or customary) courts, ‘created by regulation and statute’ (United States Institute for Peace 2008: 7) and a ‘traditional’ indigenous system Accessing justice for sexual and gender-based violence crimes in Liberia’s hybrid system

... In 1992, junior elements of the army staged a coup d'état against the Joseph Momoh government, which had taken over one-party rule from Stevens in 1985. After the coup it was clear that the sympathies of the military administration ...