- Says: “In failing to request authorisation to open an investigation into the situation in Nigeria, the Prosecutor is acting inconsistently with their obligation under article 15(3) of the Statute…”
Having failed to open an investigation into the various human rights violations and abuses by the armed group Boko Haram or the Nigerian state in the northeast, four years after concluding its preliminary examination, Amnesty International on 2 December submitted a letter to the President of the Pre-Trial Division of the International Criminal Court urging it to do the needful.
Requesting the Pre-Trial Chamber on behalf of victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity in northeast Nigeria who are members of the Jire Dole Networks (“the Applicants”), Amnesty International pointed out that: “In failing to request authorisation to open an investigation into the situation in Nigeria, the Prosecutor is acting inconsistently with their obligation under article 15(3) of the Statute, and to take any appropriate measures to remedy the situation.”
According to the International Non-Governmental Organisation (INGO), “The Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) opened a preliminary examination into the situation in Nigeria in 2010, then closed it in 2020, concluding that the criteria were met for the opening of an investigation.
“Four years later, the OTP is yet to request the authorization to open such investigation and to provide an explanation with regards to the delay.”
The group further stated that: “The applicants are of the view that, under Article 15(3) of the Rome Statute, the Prosecutor has a legal obligation to request authorization from the Pre-Trial Chamber to open an investigation if they conclude that there is a reasonable basis to proceed with an investigation.
“Having made that conclusion in relation to the situation in Nigeria, the Prosecutor was and still is under a legal obligation to request authorization from the PreTrial Chamber to proceed with an investigation, without further delay. This legal obligation is also consistent with internationally recognized human rights, including the rights of victims to truth, justice and reparations, and to being informed about the status and progress of criminal proceedings.”
Jire Dole networks is a group constituted of eleven different social networks of individuals who have suffered various human rights violations or abuses by the armed group Boko Haram or the Nigerian state in northeast Nigeria. It is led by a group of human rights activists, journalists and relatives of victims and survivors based in Maiduguri, set up in April 2017.
They organise a loose network of victims, survivors and relatives through the setting
up of groups and structures in Maiduguri and various IDP camps in Borno state. This
submission is filed on behalf of the following networks, which are part of Jire Dole Networks: the Knifar Movement, composed of over 5,720 displaced women who were separated from their husbands since their husbands were arrested; the Returning Knifar Husbands network, composed of over 2,840 men who returned from the Safe Corridor and Giwa BarracksMilitary Joint Investigation detention centers; the Jire Dole Mothers, composed of over 5,800 relatives of arrested and disappeared young men; the Njotkuno Movement, composed of over 6,650 women, men and children formerly detained by the Nigerian military; and the IndaRai network, composed of over 2,365 survivors of abductions and sexual violence and mothers of the ‘invisible children’ who were conceived and born while their mothers were in Boko Haram captivity or in detention facilities. Members of these seven networks alone total 23,382 individuals as of January 2024.
Amnesty International has worked in close collaboration with, and in support of, Jire Dole networks for over a decade, including to document crimes committed within the armed conflict in northeast Nigeria and to advocate and campaign for justice at the national and international levels.
Amnesty International has also shared its documentation of relevance to the Nigeria situation with the Office of the Prosecutor to support its preliminary examination.
The present submission has been filed on behalf of members of the networks who are direct and indirect victims of murder, enforced disappearances, abductions, conscription and use of child soldiers, enslavement, forced marriage, sexual slavery, rape and other sexual violence, mutilation, imprisonment, torture and other ill-treatment, and other crimes committed in the context of the conflict in northeast Nigeria since 2011, constituting war crimes and/or crimes against humanity.
