 Welcome back to Think Tech. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Transitional Justice and we are happy to have Aking Bolaan, Adhan Iran. I think I got that right. He's from Nigeria. Abujab, Nigeria. He's a lawyer and he's going to talk to us about a complementarian justice. Is it complementary in things in general? Welcome to the show. Boy, tell us a little about yourself. You're with Project Expedite Justice and you are doing what Project Expedite Justice does and you're doing it from Abujab, Nigeria and you're a lawyer and tell us about yourself and we can sort of focus on what you do. Thank you very much, Jay. My name is Aking Bolaan, Adhan Iran. Many people call me Boy, that's my middle name. I work as the legal and program director at Project Expedite Justice here in Nigeria. I used to be a state attorney general and commissioner for justice. It was a role that provided a platform for me to implement people-centered justice projects. I have significant working experience as an investigator and a prosecutor, both with the United Nations and the International Criminal Court in The Hague. My previous work experience also includes advising the Nigerian vice president on rule of law issues and supporting the implementation of justice sector reform projects in Lagos State. With Project Expedite Justice, I focus on empowering conflict-affected communities to seek justice and accountability. So for those out there who do not know about Project Expedite Justice, it's a U.S.-based nonprofit with charitable status that was founded in 2016 by Cynthia Tai. PGA's mission is to use all available legal options to seek justice for individuals who are inadequately protected under the law, cannot access legal resources and are exploited by government corporations and others. So that's me in a nutshell. Wow, I'm glad I asked. That's really valuable for us to understand and I want to say something that you didn't mention but I think it's worthy of mention. You're a lawyer, you went to law school in Nigeria and also in the U.S. and when you went to law school in the U.S., you were misled into going to Harvard. Well, I don't think the institution would like to hear that. I think I made a good choice in going to Harvard. I think so too. I heard your answer about who you are but the question is why are you doing this? Okay, so and I hope this doesn't sound cliche. I actually was going to be an engineer. I was a science student in school. I even did some pre-engineering good courses and I at some point decided to switch to law. It's kind of like in family profession. My mother, my father, they're both lawyers and in switching to law, one of the things that made the switch easy or the transition easier was the fact that my overall goal even for being an engineer was kind of like to solve problems, to solve people's problems, the everyday common problems that we normally find. And as a lawyer, I get to do that as well. And as a lawyer, the added bonus is like and switch and focus on different disciplines and different areas of people's lives, you know, whether it's medicine, engineering, construction work and now human rights. So it's been exciting being a lawyer and trying to just go to different areas to solve people's problems. You could have stayed in the US. You could have got a job with an NGO and non-profit in the US. You could have got a job on Wall Street for that matter, but you were elected to go back to Nigeria. Why? So initially I actually elected to go work for the International Criminal Court and it was that institution that I was in all with because I found I just considered it to be, you know, first of its kind and a fantastic opportunity to serve at that level. So I was actually the very first investigator, staff member working in the office of the International Criminal Court. And my practice in law focus is more public interest law. So you're right. I wasn't swayed by the, you know, commercial, you know, law practice, you know, Wall Street. That's not my, that's not my thing. And this has been for me very fulfilling because I get to focus on people's problems, the common man on the streets. And we like, you know, when I was doing my introduction, I talked about working on People's Center Justice Projects. And here the idea is to look at what the average person on the street actually wants, you know, trying to make sure that the justice that has been delivered is justice actually suits their needs. Not something that someone decided was appropriate without actually looking at what is needed. When we spoke earlier, you, I asked you whether you were operating working in countries other than Nigeria. And you mentioned you were working in a bunch of countries in the Horn of Africa, East Africa. So what other countries are involved? And what, what kind of work do you do as you move around from country to country? Yes. So my focus is South Sudan, Sudan, and Ethiopia. But Project Expedite Justice has additional work in Ukraine and the Democratic Republic of Congo. And the work we do really is we go to areas that are conflict affected. So it could be ongoing conflict or it could be in the post-conflict phase. And we try to empower local communities to take action in order to bring justice to address the issues affecting them. And because we are empowering the local communities, we believe it's sustainable because they are the ones that care most about their countries. And positive complementarity, which is a concept that we're going to be talking about, is really a set of activities or actions get towards encouraging national proceedings in the country. And by national proceedings, I'm talking about investigation and prosecution, you know, mass atrocity crimes, international crimes and other serious offenses, so that the countries themselves are not waiting for an international body to assist them or to do the prosecution and investigation for them. Countries handle this business themselves. They have the capacity. And it's much more sustainable that way because if anything else should happen in the future, that capacity is already built in and they're able to address the situation. So let me ask you some larger questions to start so I can get a handle. So what is the problem in your area of operation? Quality is East Africa, the Horn of Africa. That creates so much conflict. I mean, to go into the origins of the conflict, I think, would be massively complicated because we're probably out to go back into colonial or pre-colonial times. For whatever reason, there's a lot of conflict. Stemion sometimes is, you know, ethnic in origin, different ethnic groups having issues, whether it's in terms of fight for political resources, natural resources, there's always something which is scarce that the different groups are essentially fighting for. And so in all the three countries, South Sudan, Sudan and Ethiopia, it's different. And so I don't want to pretend to have one explanation that essentially cuts across all three countries. But these conflicts are a fact of life now. And what we are trying to do as project expedite justice is to seek ways to empower the human rights defenders, the civil society organizations, the non-governmental organizations, the private lawyers, and some government entities like, for example, the National Human Rights institutions in Ethiopia, for example, we're trying to empower them to take action so that when these crimes occur, there is or there can be an expectation of justice. So what is your vision, your hope? What do you hope to achieve? That was when is your job over? When is it no longer necessary to have you do what you do? What are you hoping for in these countries? What's the, you know, the status you would like to see, the vision of the future you would like to see? The Jay, I love that question. And just to give you some background, when I used to work at International Criminal Court, the prosecutor at the time, Louis Moreno Campbell, he used to say something that people just thought was, you know, profound. He would say that he would have accomplished his job if there was zero case before the court. So if he had no investigation or prosecution, and if he was made redundant, that for him would be, you know, mission accomplished. And I think it's the same for me. I would say that the day we have no more conflict, they, you know, these even in countries that have had conflict and these crimes have been addressed. So the conflict may have occurred maybe 20 years ago, for example. But you now have proceedings, national proceedings where there are active investigations and prosecutions to hold those who bear the greatest responsibility for the crimes that have occurred responsible. I would say my job is done. And especially when that is being done at local level, where you have credible proceedings that target those who are truly responsible for those crimes going on. And Sabunye, you know, how far along the trail are you? How close to that, you know, vision are you now? Is this something you think you will achieve or, you know, the community will achieve in your lifetime, in our lifetime? Jay, it's difficult to say. I think these are issues that, trust me, let me say that we have some very brave individuals working on these issues. Some people who are courageous enough to stand up, even in the face of threats and extreme danger, to stand up for what is right. And people who are willing to take up action to ensure that, you know, the justice that they see is missing is that there's something being done about it. And that's it. We are in the thick of things at the moment in the sense that there's a lot of injustice, there's a lot of conflict, there are a lot of crimes. And people are trying to bring action. So at this point in time, I think it's difficult to say whether I will be seeing, you know, my dream realized in my lifetime. I'm hoping, I'm a very optimistic person, I'm hoping that it will be, but no guarantees. I'll tell you what my dream is. Would you get to know my dream? I want to know. Please tell me. My dream is public safety, no violence. My dream is an economy for each of those countries and more in Sub-Saharan Africa, where people are happy making the money they make, they have a quality of life that is acceptable, they're not in poverty, and they have health care. You start there and you work from there. And I would like to see that. I believe that it's possible if people generally understand the value and the possibility of achieving those things. Yeah. And I love that. What you just said, so when you look at the Sustainable Development Goals 2030, the UN Sustainable Development Goals, they mentioned similar ideals, just if you were just reading from the SDGs. And these are ideals that we all aspire to. So in my other life, I try to help countries to implement people-centered justice projects or initiatives that help to guarantee equal access to justice for all, to the point that you can then start to seriously address the no violence in society ideal. And then, of course, I believe once you have security and stability, then you can then focus on the social infrastructure like health care, education, and so on. It's a long way to go, but I think it's a global vision and hopefully there'll be some serious achievement over the next few years, not only in Africa, but everywhere, not wood, not wood. So let's talk about the complementarity. Before I got the write-up on this show from Project Expedite Justice, I don't think I'd ever heard that word before. And I went and I tried to look it up, actually. I had a lot of trouble because there were various definitions, none of which really hit me. As far as I got was there were multiple things that are complementary. And the idea is to find the way to bring that complementarity together. That's as far as I got with it. Tell me more. Yes. So complementarity is actually a word that was coined by the International Criminal Court or Allied Institutions. And the idea of complementarity, now we're not talking about positive complementarity, just complementarity, is that the ICC International Criminal Court is a court of last resort, meaning that it offers complementary jurisdiction to national jurisdictions. So the idea is that countries will be the first protocol in ensuring justice after mass atrocities. So it is only where the countries are unwilling or unable that the International Criminal Court will then come to deliver justice, so to speak. And so positive complementarity is now looking at it from a much more proactive stance that rather than wait for the countries to just have the jurisdiction, why don't we proactively try to also build capacity, support those countries in developing that capacity so that they can essentially investigate and prosecute those crimes without waiting for an international institution. So is this the port of the system that exists in a given country? Or is it developing a system that somehow integrates with the system in that country? I mean, or is it both? It could be both. So if the country lacks what is needed, it could, the support could be to help develop, you know, that system. So for example, some countries may not have the legislation to tackle international crimes because they haven't domesticated or ratified the Rome Statute, which is the statute established in the International Criminal Court. But it could be that they also have the system, but they lack the capacity, so it may be not unwillingness, but the incapacity to actually implement or operationalize the system that they have. So they need support in certain areas. It could be because international crimes are massively complex. And so there might be technical support that is needed to focus on certain areas of investigation, to develop capacity so that the country will be able to address those issues. So can you give me an example, you know, down to the ground on how positive complementarity might work? And can you give me an example of where it actually has worked? Okay. So let's talk about what Project Expedite Justice does. And so Project Expedite Justice would typically go to countries where it's either in the post-conflict phase or sometimes ongoing conflict. I mean, in Sudan, for example, many will say that the conflict in that fall is ongoing. And there is an emerging conflict now in the Bruno state. And when Project Expedite Justice identifies such countries, what we do is we also try to identify different actors in the country that we believe are best placed to help the country to find the right balance in terms of being able to investigate and ensure justice accountability for the crimes that have occurred. And so we'll typically look for human rights defenders, private lawyers, civil society organizations, entities that have a background during this sort of work, and that we know have a passion for it. And then we will look at their capacity because we focus on the very at the start of the process, which is the documentation, the investigation, collecting evidence as to what has happened, documenting it so that the accountability mechanism that will be utilized to address the criminality may come down the road. But even if you have an accountability mechanism, but you don't have the evidence collected, then that might be a problem. One of the issues that institutions like the International Criminal Court face routinely is that sometimes they get there late. So maybe the crimes occurred 10 years ago. And by the time the International Criminal Court is brought on board, you know, they're ready. It's almost like, you know, a cold case. And, you know, they have to talk to witnesses about things that happened many, many years ago. And that can prove difficult in some instances. So what we are trying to do is to close that gap. We're trying to get human rights defenders, civil society organization, non-governmental organizations to start collecting the evidence early while it's still fresh, and to preserve it for either their local systems, when their local systems develop to the point that it can entertain such actions, or for an international institution that may come later down the road, the UN might set up a tribunal. And that will be used to essentially address the criminality. But once you've collected the evidence in a way that meets international standards, and that is properly preserved, then it can be used at a later stage by different actors. You know, this raises the question in my mind as to, you know, what happens if there's a change? What I mean is you are, the world is in a fast-moving environment with human rights and the prosecution of war crimes and all that. And various tribunals have various rules, it's not always the same. You'd like it to be uniform, but it may not be uniform, and it may change. So as you mentioned, sometimes you gather the evidence in year one, but you don't actually get to a trial until year five or more or ten, whatever it may be. Okay, in that period, you know, you may find the rules of evidence change. You may find the rules of the court and presentation change. You may find the whole system has to some extent legally changed. How do you set things up so that they are adaptable for that change? So, luckily for us, the international system is not as dynamic as national systems. So the change is not one that occurs from year to year. I mean, there have been some changes, like for example, the crime of aggression is now one that can be prosecuted, investigated and prosecuted at international criminal court. That means invading your neighbor. That's right. That's right. So that's progress, right? But the rules of evidence and the rules of procedure before the international criminal court has remained relatively stable. And yes, the judges can interpret the rules to make it more robust. They might narrow it in some cases, but the rules generally, they've remained fairly the same, you know, since about, you know, 15, 16 years now, I think almost 20 years in fact. So that level of stability is there. In the area of criminal law, there are general principles that apply. One is that you cannot be prosecuted for a crime that was not a crime at the time it was committed. So criminal law does not apply retrospectively or retroactively, which means that there is certainty. At the time you're committing an offense, it must be an offense and it must be a written offense. And so at least that offers people some protection. So when even if that crime, the definition changes, it won't apply to you retroactively, but you can still be tried for it for the crime that was enforced at the time that was committed, even if that crime has subsequently been redefined. And so I think for everyone who has committed mass atrocity crimes, I usually tell them that, look, your day in court will come. It might be 10 years down the line, it might be 20 years down the line, it might be 30 years down the line, but it will come. I'll give the example in Rwanda. Felicia and Kabuga, I think was on the run, was a fugitive for about 23 years. And I mean, he's an 80-something-year-old man, but he was caught, I think, about two years ago in Paris. And now he's been prosecuted in The Hague for offenses committed during Rwanda and genocide. So by that, even waiting years, decades, you hope to have what? Accountability, retribution, and deterrence. Are all three of those concepts in play in a case where you wait 23 years? Yes. So deterrence, yes. Accountability, retribution, yes. And so hopefully the person stays alive long enough to serve some prison time. In the International Criminal Court, there is the added goal of reparation to victims. And so they have a trust fund where once the court has declared a set of people as legal victims, the trust fund can essentially award, or the court can mandate the trust fund to pay some damages to them. And it will be administered in such a way as the court may essentially direct it maybe through building up schools or hospitals, but essentially some form of reparation goes back to those communities that are affected. It seems to me very important that those communities know that these proceedings, these investigations, proceedings, prosecutions are happening and are inevitable. And that there's a price or a war criminal to pay. Because if they know that, then you're raising all the votes, so to speak. You're developing greater confidence in the system, in justice, and in the government, and in PEJ, for that matter. So that is the investigators who come around and ask questions. They have greater influence because people know what it's all about. Do they know? Yeah. So the goal of international criminal justice is also to get the knowledge out there. So one of the complaints against the system is that, okay, the trials are happening in the Hague all the way in Europe. And the offenses were committed, say, in the Democratic Republic of Congo or in Northern Uganda. And the people, main victims, oftentimes not as connected to the proceedings as people would want them to. But then there's work being done in that regard. I mean, one, they try to set up centers, viewing centers, where the trials can be followed on a daily basis while it's happening. Of course, there's interpretation that's going on in case the language is one that is different from the language spoken in the country concerned. There are victims also represented at the court. So they actually go to the court. They're represented by victims represented to the lawyer that also presents their side of the problem. Because the prosecutor may not address all the victim concerns. And therefore, their representative can present also additional issues before the court. And I think all of this should all come together over time. And remember the principle of complementarity that I mentioned as well, which means that the idea is that the country itself should address the criminality. And of course, if it's doing so, then it means the proceedings are local. And so that's why that's the preferred system where the countries themselves tackling the issues. And because that justice is closer to the people, it's felt more this way. And if we, because in project expedite justice, we look for different accountability mechanisms. And some of them can be local. Some of them can be regional, like regional, I mean, within Africa as a continent, for example, for things happening in Africa. And then international, like with the International Criminal Court or some UN bodies. One of the things we're proud to mention as project expedite justice is we had a case once in Sudan where we were able to redefine open source evidence. The court found it to be admissible for the first time. And it was something that we assisted one of the partners that we work with to make the argument in court. And it's useful now because lawyers in the future can make the same argument in the legal profession, believe so much in precedence. And that precedent has been set, which means that subsequently you can have people making the argument and using it to advance justice in their own cases. That's one of those changes I was thinking about. The technology changes and the law changes or the procedure changes around the technology. But what I get from you is that you like to be able to deal with the individual countries, the individual communities. Sometimes there are issues that involve a number of countries, regions if you will. And my reaction to what you're saying is that complementarity is really something you have to look at country by country, region by region because it involves the system in that country or region. You have to examine and evaluate that system as against other systems to be able to make the connection. Am I right? Yes, 100% correct. It is focused on the particular country where the crime occurred. And you're looking at the systems in that country and trying to build the capacity for the systems in that country to operate so as to carry out investigations and prosecutions to address the criminality. Yes. So the other side of this is suppose I don't have complementarity, just subtract that from the recipe. What happens? What's the reverse side of all of that? If I don't have it, if I can't use it, if I can't make it happen? So if you don't have the competence locally to investigate or prosecute these crimes, then for the countries where countries have ratified the Rome Statute, where the International Criminal Court has the jurisdiction to intervene, then an international body essentially comes in and does the work that the country itself was meant to do. In other countries that are not parties to the Rome Statute, sometimes the UN might step in. So for example, the UN exercise in this Chapter 7 mandate, that is the UN Security Council, may then set up a tribunal like they did with former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, which would do exactly the same thing that the ICC is doing, which is to investigate and prosecute crimes that occurred. ICC may also apply even in countries that it's not party where countries are not parties to the Rome Statute. For example, if the UN Security Council refers those cases to the ICC, as was done in Sudan, Sudan is not part of the Rome Statute and Libya is also not part of the Rome Statute. I hope it is. I hope they are someday, someday soon. So what about Ukraine? You mentioned Ukraine was within your area. How is that different? How is the situation in Ukraine different and the complementarity in Ukraine? How is that? How could that? How is that different? So in Ukraine, we're doing something, I think, which is unique. We're looking at the crime of pillaging and how that has affected the food system, food insecurity in the world. And that's something that we're still, you know, in the preliminary phases of we're trying to see how we can make the connection. Because sometimes, you know, people focus on only the killings, only the rapes and so on. And they forget that there are other serious crimes that have, you know, as much devastating consequences, you know, they're not obviously, I mean, of course, death is, you know, is the worst. But when you have food insecurity instigated by conflict or instigated by, you know, different personality or actors during a conflict and how that has, you know, gone global and affected, you know, many countries, you now see, you know, spiraling food crisis or cost, you know, different parts of the world and, you know, some people, essentially, you know, going hungry as a result of this war going on or conflict going on in Ukraine. And so sometimes it's about, you know, collecting the right information and documenting the right set of things to be able to address different aspects. Because one of the things that International Criminal Justice seeks to do is to get the right, the accurate records or reflection of what has happened for posterity so that people in the future will understand and, you know, so it's about documenting. You have people who have, you know, like genocide memorials where they are able to go back in history to understand how it happened so as to prevent it. So never again. And never again means less understand how this happened so that we can prevent it going forward. You didn't mention taking children away. And I wonder if that's part of the Ukraine effort. Because it seems to me that when you take a child away and you don't even keep a record of where the child is going, you are creating, you are doing a war crime and destroying families. Is that part of your investigation? Yeah, it's not part of what Project Exploited Justice is doing, but I'm pretty sure that there's a lot of that going on. And it's important to bear in mind that there are many organizations essentially working in Ukraine, trying to develop documentation capacities so that all these crimes are being documented, as we speak, for a future accountability mechanism that we hopefully will come on stream. And when we Project Exploited Justice were looking into Ukraine, we felt we needed to address something which was completely not being looked at and which we felt would also add value to the whole discourse in terms of the consequences of mass atrocities and these sorts of crimes. And the crime of pillaging, which is a very common crime during mass conflicts, we felt this was a way of shining the spotlight so we can at least showcase to the world the consequences that accompany these sorts of crimes. Yeah, that's impressive because it's a very sophisticated analysis you have to make. It requires expertise in economics and distribution and in transportation, cargo handling, a lot of really sophisticated things, but it is totally valid claims as far as I'm concerned. The other thing I wanted to ask you about was when all this arose and emerged as war crimes, and it's a long time ago already, it's a year ago, we heard that a lot of people from various countries, I mean, outside of Africa, outside of Ukraine, were going into places where these war crimes were being investigated. And they were coming from Europe, they were coming from the US, and they were joining organizations, they were trying the best they could to help on the investigation and prosecution of war crimes and atrocities. So have you met them? Are they there? Are they there in the Horn of Africa? Are they there in Ukraine? And where do they come from? Are they American? Are they European? Are they a combination? Do you want more to come? Is it helpful to have them come? So one of the things I think many people will tell you about is that there are many players on the ground, many of them actually focusing on different aspects of the conflict. So some of them are focusing on the killings, some of them are focusing on the aggression aspect of it. There's talk about, you know, in the future there might be a tribunal that is set up to address the crime of aggression. And, you know, it's too early to say whether they're helpful now. Of course, we hope that they will be helpful. I usually say that this is the time to document the crimes going on because it's going to be very difficult in future to do so. Now, because of technology also that we have, you can document, you know, using systems that can preserve the evidence for, you know, future purposes. So this is an area that I believe the world is watching. And the people that are doing this sort of work were kind of like on trial. And I think it's a way in which we can prove that the work is useful. And it's good for the global system as a whole. Yeah, isn't it? I mean, if they come from far away, they're willing to, you know, contribute their time, volunteer, and take the risk, whatever that might be, that that's a statement not only in terms of supporting you, but a statement back home. And they're telling the people back home, this is a worthy cause. And we should all be involved in support this cause. So good for you. And I really appreciate talking with you, Bode. And maybe hope day, one Monday, I get to see you. How about that? That'd be great, Jay. No, thanks for having me. It's been a pleasure. The pleasure here too, Bode. Thank you so much. As we say, Aloha. Aloha. Thank you for watching this book, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at think.kawaii.com. Mahalo.