International Criminal Law and Transitional Justice in Post-Conflict West Africa: A Theoretical and Comparative Analysis

This dissertation develops an original theoretical framework for understanding the interaction between international criminal law and transitional justice mechanisms in post-conflict West African states, with comparative analysis of Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, and implications for Nigeria's own transitional justice needs. Transitional justice mechanisms including truth commissions, reparations programmes, institutional reforms, and hybrid tribunals operate at the intersection of international criminal law, human rights law, and political settlement theory, yet their relationship remains theoretically underspecified in the African context. Drawing on transitional justice theory, the sociology of international criminal tribunals, and comparative institutional analysis, this research develops an original transitional justice effectiveness framework that assesses how different combinations of accountability mechanisms produce sustainable peace and human rights outcomes in West African contexts. It fills a gap in the comparative transitional justice literature by developing the first systematic theoretical framework grounded in West African rather than Latin American or European transitional justice experiences. The dissertation examines the Special Court for Sierra Leone, the Ivorian Special Investigative Cell, and Liberia's proposed war crimes court as case studies, and applies lessons to Nigeria's unresolved accountability needs arising from the 1967 to 1970 civil war and the Boko Haram conflict. Original contributions include the transitional justice effectiveness framework and a West Africa transitional justice typology. Findings support a sequenced accountability approach integrating criminal prosecution with truth-telling and reparations. Keywords: transitional justice, international criminal law, West Africa, accountability, peacebuilding.