Abstract from unpublished paper (© 2023 Beth S. Lyons.  All rights reserved)

Dominic Ongwen was abducted in 1987 by the Lord’s Resistance Army (‘LRA’) in Northern Uganda when he was 8 or 9 years old and trafficked as a child soldier; he made multiple unsuccessful attempts to escape, and finally succeeded in 2015.  He turned himself in to the International Criminal Court in 2016.  Mr. Ongwen’s defence was that he was not responsible for the crimes of the LRA, based on his mental illnesses and duress, stemming from his abduction and subsequent coercion and indoctrination under Joseph Kony within the LRA.  In February 2021, Trial Chamber IX convicted Dominic Ongwen of 61 charges and two modes of liability.  He was sentenced to 25 years incarceration.  The Trial Judgment was affirmed by the Appeals Chamber in December 2022.

My contention is that if the LRA were a predominantly white cult, or if it functioned in a predominantly white/European country, or if the Defence expert psychiatrists from Uganda were white or if the client, Mr. Dominic Ongwen, were white, the Trial Chamber would have reached a different conclusion about the affirmative defences of mental disease and duress and acquitted him.

This article critiques the judicial racial and cultural biases in the Ongwen Judgment, as related to the affirmative defence of mental disease or defect.  These biases blinded the judges, and prevented them from assessing the evidence in an impartial manner and correctly applying the law.  They were a significant factor in the Trial Chamber’s rejection of Mr. Ongwen’s affirmative defences, mental disease or defect and duress.

For the ICC to be a respected and legitimate organ of international justice, it must apply the rule of law to all, and ensure fairness in its proceedings.  This means, in part, confronting its racial and cultural biases within its structure, as well as within the decisions and judgments which it renders.

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Note to reader:  I am one of the defence counsel in the Ongwen case at the ICC.  The above abstract is from an unpublished paper which I have submitted to a number of law journals.  The paper is quite long (about 26,000 words with footnotes), and exceeds the length requirement of most law journals.   If you have any suggestions for publication, I’d be grateful.  Thanks.  Please contact me at bethlyons@aol.com.