This chapter discusses the legal competence of the Special Court for Sierra Leone. First, the chapter discusses the personal jurisdiction of the Court and the decision to prosecute the crimes that had already been established as legal norms under international law and domestic Sierra Leonean law. The chapter thereafter examines the origin of each of the prosecutable crimes from prior international tribunals, namely crimes against humanity, war crimes and other serious violations of international humanitarian law, and the debates and difficulties that stemmed from using Sierra Leone’s law as the basis for offenses. Second, it analyzes the temporal jurisdiction of the court, while the civil war lasted nearly a decade the temporal jurisdiction of the Special Court only covered a few years in the last part of a ten-year conflict, leaving a large part of atrocities without any prosecutions. Finally, the chapter addresses the Special Court’s prosecutions of all parties to the Sierra Leone conflict, including the controversial government-funded militia, in an attempt to avoid criticism as another “victors justice” court.

This chapter begins the examination of the Special Court for Sierra Leone’s jurisprudence in a range of areas. It focused on Article 1(1) of the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) Statute giving that tribunal competence “to prosecute those who bear the greatest responsibility” for serious crimes committed during the Sierra Leonean conflict. The debate that arose during the SCSL trials was whether this statement constituted a jurisdictional requirement that the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt or merely a type of guideline for the exercise of prosecutorial discretion. The judges of the court split on this seemingly simple legal question. This chapter unpacks the reasoning of the SCSL. First, the chapter addresses the common ground among the judges and the Court’s ultimate conclusion that “greatest responsibility” implied that leaders, as well as the worst killers, may be prosecuted. Second, it demonstrates why the reasoning of the Appeals Chamber was results-oriented and wrong. Finally, referring to the work of other tribunals with a similar mandate, this chapter identifies the lessons of the Sierra Leone Court on greatest responsibility jurisdiction. It builds on them to offer preliminary recommendations on how the greatest responsibility confusion can be avoided when drafting personal jurisdiction clauses for future ad hoc international penal tribunals.