L'istituzione in Senegal delle Camere straordinarie africane

The EAC are established in Dakar, following an Agreement between Senegal and the AU, in order to prosecute international crimes committed in Chad during the Hissène Habré dictatorship. They cannot be considered as a mixed criminal tribunal, although share some of its features. They rely on the assistance granted by a Regional Organization to one of its Member States, to enable it to act against crimes perpetrated by Habré, thus fulfilling its obligations under CAT 1984, as they were recognized by the ICJ in Belgium v. Senegal Case. An African country, exercising universal jurisdiction following the introduction of external elements in its internal legal order, is addressing grave breaches of human rights and humanitarian law committed 20 years earlier, in another African country, by its highest polical authority against its population, outside of any state-building context. In this endeavour it is supported by the AU, and called by the ECOWAS Court, in a fully regional context.