Afghanistan - The New Amnesty Bill and the Duty to Investigate and Prosecute Human Rights Abusers

Today, according to Jurist [report], the lower house of parliament in Afghanistan approved an amnesty bill that would make state prosecution of war criminals contingent on an accusation raised by an alleged victim. Today's bill is a revised version of a previous amnesty bill that, for the sake of peace, would have granted blanket amnesties to warlords that had allegedly committed human rights violations during the country's long period of conflict. This prior bill had been criticized by human rights groups and the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights [Jurist report] for not respecting the victims' rights to justice.

The new bill gives victims at least a right to seek justice on an individual basis. Yet, it sort of shifts the responsibility for prosecuting war crimes to the individual victim instead of having the state prosecute war criminals ex officio. I have my doubts whether such a solution would fully satisfy Afghanistan's duty to investigate and prosecute human rights perpetrators as implied by international treaty law as well as customary international law.