Magister Legum - LLM / The Republic of South Sudan became independent from the Republic of Sudan on 9 July 2011. South Sudan has an area of 644, 329 km2 and a total estimated population of around 12, 6 million.1The original state of Sudan was intensely divided along ethnic, religious and ideological lines. The general population of the Republic of Sudan is mainly Sunni Muslim whereas the South Sudanese are mostly Christian, with small populations that still practice African indigenous religions.2While the Republic of Sudan is predominantly Arabic-speaking, English and over sixty local languages are spoken in South Sudan.3 The new Republic of South Sudan was born after one of the longest and most ruthless wars fought in Africa. The war between the government of Sudan and the Southerners had its roots in 1955 as resistance to “Sudanisation” began in the run-up to Sudanese independence. Provincial administration4favouring the better-educated northerners over southerners and further conflict fuelled by "Islamisation" strategies and the inability to actualise a government framework that would ensure self-governance for the South led to a protracted civil war between the north and south.5 The Addis Ababa Agreement that ended the first civil war in 1972 did not resolve political pressures and when Sharia law was introduced in 1983, it reignited the north-south conflict.6 The Second Sudanese Civil War ended with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in January 2005. The CPA ended a period of constant war between 1955 and 2005 barring an eleven-year truce that isolates two savage stages.7

Magister Legum - LLM / The aim of this study is to scrutinise, in particular, the legal bases of and decisions taken by various hybrid courts with regards to such consolidating or fragmenting effects on substantive international criminal law. The first section (Chapter 2), it will examine what is to be understood by the notion of a hybrid court. This will be followed by an analysis of the hybrid courts that have been established thus far. Furthermore, the advantages and reasons for which hybrid courts have been established in recent decades will be discussed, especially regarding their potential advantages as a transitional justice instrument. Moreover, disadvantages of hybrid courts and their deficiencies in the past will be addressed. Subsequently, the role of hybrid courts within the international legal system and their utility in the future will be discussed. This will include, on the one hand, the scope of the jurisdiction of hybrid courts in relation to other national and international criminal courts, especially vis-à-vis the ICC. On the other hand, it will be addressed whether hybrid courts will – or should – be established in the future, given the creation of the permanent ICC as well as the shortcomings of hybrid courts in the past. Against this background, the impact of hybrid courts on the further development of international criminal law will be assessed in the third section of the paper (Chapter 4). In this regard, the discussion will focus on a representative selection of hybrid courts, namely the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL), the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL). It will be discussed how their legal bases as well as their jurisprudence relate to the previous state of international criminal law, and whether they constitute adverse diversifications or positive contributions to international criminal law. In a concluding section (Chapter 5), the results of the study will be analysed and possible correlations between the structural elements of hybrid courts and their impact on international criminal law will be discussed. Finally, further questions regarding the use of hybrid courts in the future will be addressed.

Magister Legum - LLM / Hybrid Courts are the latest innovation in the prosecution of international crimes after the era of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Examples include; the Extraordinary African Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, the Regulation 64 Panels in the courts of Kosovo and the Special Court for Sierra Leone. The hybrid court model at its inception was believed to be the panacea for the short comings of purely international tribunals. The characteristic location of the tribunals in the locus of the atrocities and the participation of local judicial officers alongside their international counterparts was expected to promote legitimacy and foster capacity building for conflict ravaged transitional states. Despite the criticisms of the model today, a new hybrid court has recently been inaugurated to prosecute Hissène Habré the former President of Chad, for international crimes committed during his presidency. The promulgation of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Senegal suggests that the model continues to be useful, especially for Africa. This is of particular significance since international criminal justice has lately come under attack on the continent. The on-going feud between the African Union and the International Criminal court is only the most prolific example of this. This research paper explores the dimensions of the challenges facing the legitimacy of international criminal justice in Africa and the extent to which the hybrid court model can provide a solution for them. In order to do so, the study begins by addressing the meaning of legitimacy within the African context. A general discussion of hybrid tribunals, as well as the specific manifestations of the model in Africa so far, follows. The Special Court for Sierra Leone and the Extraordinary African Chambers in the Courts of Senegal are distinguishable from each other in structure and are thus juxtaposed in order to illuminate possible improvements on the hybrid court model for the future.