Governance

In this review, we analyze the recent decision by President Salva Kiir Mayardit to reinstitute the ten states system of governance in South Sudan. We focus our attention on reactions from the stakeholders of the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS), the public, the region, and international community, surveying the moods of those involved. We also examine the repercussions of, and implications associated with the decision. The main question we examine is whether the decision could potentially restore peace or latently produce additional troubles than is intended, extending instability. The president’s subsequent speech lends hopes for peace, suggesting that the decision could restore peace in the country, depending on how the underlying grievances are handled during the tenure of the Revitalized Transitional Government of National Unity (RTGONU). That is, the value of this decision is predicated upon the extent to which the RTGONU handles the fundamental matters of security, governance, service delivery, and justice, an achievement of which could not be attained absent of measured reforms

Availability of accurate and up to date data and information on land and different land uses, such as agriculture, forestry, mining, wildlife, water, housing and infrastructure, is critical to effective land governance and crucial for planning and managing the use of land and land-based resources. Public institutions and the government need land data and information for appropriate and timely decision-making; while land users, the general public and other stakeholders need it to effectively monitor and influence those decisions. Land data and information is also critical for effective tracking of land policy implementation processes to inform lesson learning and generate good practices, as well as to ensure sustainable and equitable land investments.
It is an often-repeated rhetoric that there is a lack of land data; either there is no data or the data that exists is unreliable or out of date. Collecting new data is a time-consuming and costly process. Data is collected and captured on a massive scale already, but research shows that of all existing data worldwide, less than 1% is actually analyzed and digested. With increasing digitization of information, increased use of internet in all parts of the world, and continuously growing demand for more data, the risk is that existing data is either purposely cast aside (as the source may be from outside our trusted networks) or simply overlooked. The current reality of land data is that in many par ts of the world, data remains inaccessible, fragmented, poorly managed or simply unusable.

With this State of Land Information Report, the authors seek to provide an overview of publicly available data and information on key land issues, from not only government, but also other sources. The aim of the research is to uncover the many different sources of land data and information at the country-level and help to identify actual data and information gaps, with a view to establishing a baseline for targeted ‘information-based’ interventions to improve the information ecosystem. What sets this research apart from other monitoring initiatives, is that the focus is on the database or dataset and its sources; the value or content of the information is not our main focus. The authors’ belief is that data quality, accuracy and reliability lies in the judgement of the user. For the very first time, the authors look at the entire landscape of a country to see trends and gaps when it comes to land data collection, as well as how accessible it is on the world wide web. The State of Land Information report concludes with -where necessary- concrete recommendations to data and information providers to improve their data sharing practices, to help establish a functioning, inclusive and democratized ecosystem of data.

Addressing the legacies of mass human rights violations is a daunting task for any society emerging from conflict. The challenges are all the more complex in South Sudan, where people have struggled with civil wars, state repression, and developmental neglect for generations. With the current conflict, transitional justice – or the range of judicial and nonjudicial measures that countries emerging from a period of conflict or authoritarian rule use to address past human right violations – has come onto the agenda for the first time. However, the foundational elements that are required for transitional justice interventions to succeed are lacking. Political leaders are largely uninformed about the role that transitional justice can play in restoring peace, and some are deeply uncomfortable with the notion of scrutinizing and holding people accountable for wartime abuses. Survivors are conspicuously absent from discussions about how best to address the legacies of the conflict, and human rights advocates are confronted with an ever-shrinking civic space. Moreover, there are real fears that the tense peace that currently exists among most armed groups could collapse at any moment and the country could return to full-scale civil war.

The uncertainties of the current situation make it all the more important for South Sudanese to develop a carefully considered plan for transitional justice that identifies priorities and sequences activities in a manner that sustains and builds momentum over time. Most importantly, transitional justice interventions must be tailored to the context and designed and implemented in a manner that is meaningful to South Sudanese. Transitional justice in South Sudan will be a generational undertaking. While the current generation may not realize the full rewards of their efforts, it is nonetheless incumbent upon us to begin the process and establish a strong foundation that subsequent generations might build upon.

Conflict and humanitarian crises increase the risk of both intimate partner violence and non-partner sexual violence against women and girls. The authors measured the prevalence and risk factors of different forms of violence against women and girls in South Sudan, which has suffered decades of conflict, most recently in 2013.

Despite the end of the civil war in 2005, many people in South Sudan continued to experience a deep sense of insecurity due to the many different types of violent conflict in the country. This sense of insecurity is exacerbated by the lack of protection from the state and the perceived injustice in how power is distributed at the national level. Based on a study carried out in 2013, prior to the country’s relapse into large-scale violence, this article discusses gendered insecurity and agency among the Latuko in Imatong state. In response to their sense of insecurity, the Latuko have developed security arrangements that represent forms of hybrid security governance. Using a notion of masculinity, the article will reflect on the gender dynamics in these local security arrangements. This shows that the social order that customary institutions create can contribute to an increase in violence against women at the domestic level. However, although women are excluded from the decision-making institutions that govern the security arrangements, they exercise subtle forms of agency to influence them.

The report “Trafficking in Persons in South Sudan: Prevalence, Responses and Challenges” analyzes the nature of trafficking in persons in the country, its forms, challenges and the legal gaps in the present legal framework in South Sudan. It provides recommendations that the Technical Taskforce and its partners are set to address. TIP is a heinous crime that exploits human beings. It comes in many forms, including forced labor, forced marriages, sexual exploitation and domestic servitude among others. It’s in this report that the nation gets to know what TIP is in South Sudan. The report highlights that the current TIP provisions in the national legal frameworks are inadequate to provide a deterrence to perpetrators, including aggravating punishments to traffickers themselves. The Government of South Sudan recognizes this as the main challenge to combat TIP in the country.

The report recommends major reforms to its key government institutions and avenues to build a firm foundation to combat TIP in the country, in line with the regional and international frameworks. Currently, South Sudan does not have provisions that are commensurate to the UN Protocol to Prevent, Punish and Suppress Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Conventions against Transnational Organize Crimes and its Protocol

The justice versus peace dichotomy or lack thereof has spawned both legal practice and international law literature for decades. As the debate pertains to the application of transitional justice specifically against the backdrop of mass political violence or civil wars, some jurists, legal practitioners and other scholars suggest that, on the one hand, justice and peace are mutually exclusive concepts. This implies that neither peace nor justice can be pursued without adversely impacting or displacing the other. Others, on the other hand, maintain that peace and justice are mutually reinforcing virtues, suggesting that the pursuit of one serves to augment the other. While the third school of thought acknowledges that both peace and justice are indispensable virtues for a dignified human life, it contends that an overreliance on the pursuit of justice at all costs is detrimental for sustainable peace. As well, it argues that justice should not be sacrificed on the altar of peace. In this regard, the third way proposes that the stringent standards of pursuing peace and justice should be relaxed in the interest of a balanced solution. Cognizant of the fact that South Sudan is a deeply divided and polarized country, this piece suggests that the most appropriate vehicle for pursuing transitional justice in South Sudan is in the form of truth, reconciliation and healing (TRH) and, perhaps, compensation but not through criminal prosecutions of the actions of key players in the recently concluded conflict. Failure to observe the delicacy of balancing peace and justice only operates to fester the conflict. That is in part because key actors in a mass political conflict are cushioned by their (ethnic) constituencies and in part because, generally, justice deferred solely for the sake of peace may actually breed more insecurity just as sacrificing peace for the sake of justice only yields incendiary results.

The current state of affairs in the country has been long in the making. Since April 2020, following a stalled formation of the Revitalized Government of National Unity (RTGoNU), there has been growing frustration in the country. Citizens had hoped that the political developments in February and March had created sufficient momentum to push the parties toward full implementation of what was clearly a grounded Peace Agreement. One of the key decisions that created this thrust was the President’s decision to return the country to 10 states. The issue of the number of states and their boundaries was considered a major hurdle toward the implementation of the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS).

This report explores the important role chiefs’ courts play in food security and in addressing hunger in South Sudan by reallocating food to vulnerable community members. Their role is particularly important in view of famine and recurrent extreme food insecurity affecting South Sudan. The authors suggest that chief courts potentially offer useful data for famine early warning and responses but also underline that humanitarian actors engaging with chiefs’ courts should do so with a contextually informed and locally nuanced approach.