Justice in the Wake of Civil War: Sierra Leone and Rwanda.

• Author: Ayittey, George B.N.
• Position: BOOKS

MORE THAN 40 civil wars have been waged in postcolonial Africa. Some never end. Others--Libya, South Sudan--restart after brief lulls. The results are devastating: crumpled infrastructure, blighted agriculture, declining investment, increasing misery. Populations have been uprooted and traumatized; combatants have committed barbaric acts. How do you pursue justice after a war finally concludes?

Two options are available. Western jurisprudence tends to stress punishing the guilty. Traditional African jurisprudence tends to emphasize reconciliation, restitution, and the restoration of social harmony. The first path is retributive, the second restorative. Two well-researched and magnificently written books on the experiences of Sierra Leone and Rwanda grapple with each approach.

In both countries, the relatively restorative option was far more cost-effective. In Sierra Leone, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) cost $5 million, while the retributive Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) ran $300 million a year. In Rwanda, the traditional restorative gacaca courts spent $40 million trying nearly 2 million cases over a decade. Compare that to the yearly $300 million price tag for the retributive International Tribunal for Rwanda, which completed fewer than 100 cases in two decades.

But despite its cost advantages, restorative justice can also be abused, particularly when the state controls how it is dispensed. LynS. Graybill's Religion, Tradition, and Restorative Justice in Sierra Leone comes down in favor of restorative justice in general, but it also shows how the government can botch its implementation; the country saw much better results when independent elements of civil society created their own restorative systems. In Investing in Authoritarian Rule, Anuradha Chakravarty reveals that the Rwandan government exploited the traditional system of justice for political purposes, using it to dole out favors and to extract acquiescence from a terrified population.

SIERRA LEONE'S WAR began on March 23, 1991, when Foday Sankoh's rebel group, the Revolutionary United Front, invaded from Liberia. Sankoh's group was infamous for amputating the limbs of anyone, even babies, who seemed to stand in its way to power. When the war concluded 11 years later, some 75,000 civilians had been killed, 20,000 had been mutilated, and 2 million people were displaced.

To pursue justice afterward, both African and Western systems were deployed. The United...