Charles Taylor to Be Turned Over for Trial

According to the BBC, the government of Nigeria has agreed to hand over former Liberian President Charles Taylor for trial. The Nigerian Government statement said: “President Olusegun Obasanjo has today, 25 March, informed President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf that the government of Liberia is free to take former President Charles Taylor into custody.”

The BBC further reports that:

Mr Taylor is accused of selling diamonds and buying weapons for Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front rebels, who were notorious for hacking off the hands and legs of civilians during a 10-year war.

He also started the Liberian civil war in 1989, before being elected president in 1997.
Mr Taylor has been living with his 100-strong entourage in the south-eastern Nigerian city of Calabar since mid-2003.

His supporters have said that he has immunity from prosecution under the peace deal which saw him step down.

But human rights activists accuse him of breaking the terms of that deal by trying to influence Liberian politics.

While I do not think it has been officially announced whether the trial will be in Liberian municipal courts or through an international tribunal, based on President Johnson-Sirleaf’s statements, it seems likely that Taylor will be sent to the Special Court on Sierra Leone.

While international criminal law may still have a distance to travel in building strong and equitable institutions, this is a significant step, especially considering the reports that there was a consensus in the African Union and among West Africa states more specifically that Taylor should be turned over. We should not let the procedural morass of the Milosevic trial obscure the fact that something like this would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. International criminal law may have a way to go, but it has already come a long way.