The Hissène Habré case and the innovation possibilities regarding criminal regional courts

• Autor(a) principal: Leite, Rodrigo
• Data de Publicação: 2018
• Outros Autores: Cabral, Rafael Lamera Giesta
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista Espaço Jurídico/Espaço Jurídico Journal of Law
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.unoesc.edu.br/espacojuridico/article/view/16194
• topic: Human rights; African system; Hissène Habré; Direitos humanos; Sistema africano; Hissène Habré

On May 30, 2016, the dictator of Chad, Hissène Habré, had been sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity by a Special Criminal Court (Extraordinary African Chambers – CAE) created in Senegal. Habré’s condemnation means a major reorganization of the African Human Rights System as one of the first initiatives against the impunity of crimes committed on African territory by African citizens against the African population and judged by African states that are territorially different. When judged in another state, and also with application of the international law and Senegal’s law, the Habré case provides a relevant inflection point for the understanding of regional human rights systems, while introducing alternatives for the realization of these rights. The objective of the research was to analyze the case from two points: the first, related to the way in which the African Union has sought to strengthen the mechanisms for the protection of human rights in the continent, and secondly, by addressing the interpretative elasticity given to the case that, in addition to prosecute cases of human rights violations carried out in another state (Chad), its own laws (Senegal) were also applied to pursue punishment. In order to achieve the results, the research produced a bibliographic review and a descriptive research, from the case study. The creation of the CAE can be understood as an attempt to incorporate a regional criminal jurisdiction to convict those who commit crimes against humanity in Africa to the detriment of the International Criminal Court.