A Court Central Africans Asked For, Funded From Abroad
Can a war crimes court survive on goodwill alone? The Central African Republic’s Special Criminal Court (SCC) has spent eight years proving it can deliver verdicts. Since its inauguration on 22 October 2018, it has tried six cases, and the first four have produced verdicts, at least at first instance, convicting 19 people of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Yet a new Amnesty International report warns that the court is running out of money and could close when its mandate ends in October 2028, leaving thousands of victims without justice and some of the country’s highest-ranking suspects beyond reach.
The report, titled “The perpetrators are still here”, describes a court on borrowed time. The SCC relies solely on voluntary contributions from states and international organizations, and at present only the United Nations and the European Union are funding it. Its story is a test of whether accountability for mass atrocity in Africa can rest on something sturdier than the shifting priorities of donors.
Six Trials, Nineteen Convictions
The SCC is a hybrid court supported by the UN, made up of Central African and foreign prosecutors and judges. It has a mandate to investigate and prosecute crimes under international law committed during the country’s conflicts since 2003, and began its second five-year term on 22 October 2023. In one of its cases, victims also received reparations.
More trials are moving. The verdict in the fifth trial, concerning attacks in Guen in western CAR in 2014, is expected next December, and the Bossembélé trial, in which former president François Bozizé is among the accused, is under way. Amnesty also notes a significant improvement in the enforcement of the court’s arrest warrants in recent years.
The Crimes Still Waiting
Much remains untouched. Amnesty lists widespread campaigns of murder, rape and looting in 2002 and 2003, in particular by security forces of former president Ange-Félix Patassé and fighters from Jean-Pierre Bemba’s armed group, which Patassé enlisted to try to crush Bozizé’s coup. It also points to killings, rapes, torture, and enforced disappearances between 2012 and 2014, during the conflict between the Seleka and anti-Balaka armed groups. Victims of those periods are still waiting for all perpetrators in positions of high authority to be prosecuted.
Dozens of people named in arrest warrants remain at large. Bozizé lives in Guinea-Bissau, while other wanted suspects are in Chad. The court has tried some, including Bozizé, in their absence, but Amnesty argues that trials in absentia undermine defense rights and fall short of what victims need. “Victims want justice [to be done]. When their perpetrators are brought to justice, their hearts will be at peace, when they see them in prison,” said a representative of a Central African organization supporting victims. However, other victims said they were satisfied with judgments in absentia.
A Budget Hole Left by Washington
The financial crisis has a clear starting point. In 2025, the United States withdrew its financial support for the SCC, leaving more than US$4.15 million in commitments unpaid. Between August and September 2025, funding cuts forced the court to lay off a quarter of its staff, including foreign experts. Its witness protection unit lost more than half of its staff, which could weaken its ability to shield witnesses from reprisals. The Office of the Prosecutor can no longer open new investigations, and cases before the court’s chambers are suffering delays.
“Victims’ right to justice, truth, and reparations must not depend on the shifting priorities of donors,” said Marceau Sivieude, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for West and Central Africa. He called on the Central African authorities, the UN, the EU and partner states to fund the court’s operating budget, preferably through multi-year commitments.
No Fallback in Sight
If the SCC closes, there is no obvious successor. The International Criminal Court has jurisdiction over crimes committed in the CAR since 2002 and opened two investigations at the government’s request. Still, in December 2022, its prosecutor announced that those investigations were closing. National courts, Amnesty found, lack the human and material resources as well as the independence to take on the SCC’s caseload. “If the cases are transferred to the national courts, it will mean that they will be before our judges, and their superiors will influence them,” one victims’ representative said.
Meanwhile, violence has not ended. Its intensity has fallen since a peak in 2021, but all parties to the conflict continue to commit serious violations in the north-east and south-east of the country. Amnesty, which interviewed 63 people during an April 2026 mission to Bangui, shared its findings with the authorities on 6 October and had received no response by publication.
Paying for Our Own Justice
“The SCC was established at the request of the Central African people and civil society,” Sivieude said. That origin is the strongest argument for the court and its greatest vulnerability: a court demanded at home. Still, it can be switched off abroad by a budget decision in a foreign capital. Amnesty wants the Central African authorities to extend the mandate beyond October 2028 and help secure funding. A wider answer would be for African governments and the African Union to treat hybrid courts as shared public goods and contribute to them directly, so that justice for Bangui’s victims no longer depends on whether a distant donor still finds the cause fashionable.
