294 Book Reviews / International Criminal Law Review 10 (2010) 289–299

Kjetil Tronvoll, Charles Schaefer and Girmachew Alemu Aneme (eds.), Th e Ethiopian Trials: Transitional Justice Challenged , Woodbridge, Suff olk; Rochester, NY, James Currey, 2009, ISBN-13: 978-1847013200, xv + 158pp.

Th is edited volume is one of the very few academic reviews of the Ethiopian “Red Terror” trials that ran from 1995 to 2007. It analyses the trials established by the Government of to deal with the crimes and human rights abuses perpe- trated during the administration of Colonel Mengistu Haliemariam’s Marxist military regime between 1974 and 1991. Suzannah Linton once noted that “[i]n historical context, the global record of accountability for atrocity has been abysmal, whether at domestic or international level.”1 On this basis, one might reasonably presume that as one of the relatively few transitional states to embark on a process of comprehensive criminal accountability, the Ethiopian trials would attract much attention given that they make up a very sizeable proportion of the war crimes and trials undertaken since the end of the Cold War. Regrettably, due to their questionable human rights record and the overshadow- ing eff ect in the African context of South Africa’s TRC and the ICTR, the Ethiopian trials have attracted little comprehensive academic analysis, though piecemeal studies exist.2 As a result of its domestic nature and deprivations of defendants’ rights, there has been a lack of international interest in recording and observing the trials. Th is absence of systematic trial monitoring enjoyed by other international and domestic transitional trial processes perhaps best explains why this volume focuses less on the jurisprudence of the court than on the policy deci- sions taken in establishing and implementing the trials. As such, it takes a more interdisciplinary transitional justice approach that utilizes history, political sci- ence and anthropology as much as law than an outright examination of interna- tional criminal procedure or interpretation of substantive international criminal law. Nevertheless, the volume should prove of use to academics and practitioners in the narrower fi eld of international criminal justice, notwithstanding its limited treatment of substantive and procedural law. While much scholarship in the area revolves around legalistic and frequently abstruse analyses of how many joint criminal enterprise members can dance on the head of a pin to the exclusion of

1 ) Suzannah Linton, ‘Putting Th ings Into Perspective: Th e Realities of Accountability in East Timor, Indonesia and Cambodia’, 3 Maryland Series in Contemporary Asian Studies (2005) 82. 2 ) Notable works include Dadimos Haile, Accountability for Crimes Past and the Challenges of Criminal Prosecution: Th e Case of Ethiopia (Leuven: Leauven University Press, 2000); Girmachew Alemu Aneme, ‘Apology and trials: Th e case of the Red Terror trials in Ethiopia’, 6 Africa Human Rights Journal (2006) 64; Jeremy Sarkin, ‘Transitional Justice and the Prosecution Model: Th e Experience of Ethiopia’, 3 Law, Democracy and Development (1999) 253; Hailemariam Yacob, ‘Th e Quest for Justice and Reconciliation: Th e International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the Ethiopian High Court’, 22 Hastings International and Comparative Law Review (1999) 667.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2010 DOI 10.1163/157181210X492270 Book Reviews / International Criminal Law Review 10 (2010) 289–299 295 the social impact of trials, the volume takes us back to the principled questions of why international criminal justice is so relevant, how it interacts with the need for historical truth and fi nally the pitfalls that can occur. With the shift from the principle of primacy (the position that international crimes should be tried by international tribunals even where domestic courts function) to complementarity (where domestic prosecutions are a priori preferred, with international trials employed only where domestic courts are incapable or unwilling) and increased domestic participation seen most clearly in Articles 1, 3(3) and 4(2) of the Rome Statute, the volume provides a welcome reminder of the justifi cations for, and dangers of, deferring to national interests for these issues. In 1974, a revolution led by students, peasants and workers led to the break- down of the regime of Emperor . In the vacuum created, a Marxist- leaning military junta (Derg) eventually led by the aforementioned Mengistu ended any pretence of constitutional rule and commenced seventeen years of repression. Th ey began with widespread arrests and executions of fi gures in the imperial regime, and then commenced attacks on their civilian and military dis- sidents.3 What we know as the Red Terror was actually a phenomenon that lasted merely from 1976 to 1978. In this sense, “Th e Ethiopian Red Terror Trials” is the collective shorthand description of the trials that Ethiopians use, though it can be considered a misnomer given the wider span of the trials. Notoriously, families who could identify the bodies of their murdered sons and husbands were required to pay for the bullets used to kill them before they could be removed for burial. Th ere is no consensus on the number killed in the period of Derg rule overall. What is clear is that after the Red Terror, the population became quiescent, for- bidden to mourn and ready to accept anything. Abuses continued against rebel insurgencies, during wars with Ethiopia’s neighbours and against domestic dissi- dents until 1991. By 1991, it became apparent the regime would collapse in the face of advanc- ing regional resistance forces. Mengistu fl ed to where he remains to this day, remains there despite an Ethiopian court verdict fi nding him guilty in absentia of genocide. A provisional Government was formed with Meles Zelawi, head of the EPRDF party (a coalition of Tigrayan, Oromo, Amharic and south- ern Ethiopian resistance groupings) as President. Arrests of thousands of military and civilian fi gures in the Derg regime followed. Th e Provisional Government of Ethiopia (a state which was one of the original signatories of the Nuremberg Charter) ratifi ed the ICCPR, ICESCR, Torture Convention and ACHPR, which were incorporated into domestic law and constitutionally bound the Government and courts. Signifi cantly, the SPO mandate did not extend to crimes committed by the victorious factions in the civil war. Th e contributors to this volume

3 ) Bahru Zewde, “Th e History of the Red Terror Trial: Contexts and Consequences”, pp. 17-32.