An international criminal court courtroom in every parish: victims' experiences and perceptions in the case of Dominic Ongwen
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Date
2026
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Publisher
Gulu University
Abstract
Abstract
This study provides a unique, in-depth examination of victim participation in international criminal justice processes. It uncovers the lived realities of victims obscured by formalistic legal processes, as articulated by the victims themselves. It explores the engagement of victims through the case of Dominic Ongwen at the International Criminal Court (ICC), by centring the experiences of victims from Lukodi, in Gulu district, northern Uganda. Driven by the aspiration to understand how victims experience and navigate the usually sophisticated judicial environment, the study analyses the different forms of participation, the challenges victims encounter, and their perceptions of justice and satisfaction through the long and often difficult judicial journey. Adopting a qualitative phenomenological approach contextualised within a constructivist paradigm, this research harnesses data that was collected over an extended period of seven years, using in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, key informant conversations, and document reviews.
The findings of this study unveil a complex reality of victim engagement. They show that meaningful engagement of victims is often constrained by procedural, structural, physical, logistical, and psychological obstacles, among others. Despite numerous near-debilitating challenges to their participation, victims continue to demonstrate unwavering resilience and agency as they navigate participation, a platform that is often symbolic while also carrying the potential for genuine empowerment. A novel, hybrid theoretical perspective, here referred to as the “Triune Hybrid Model of Victim Participation” (THM-VP), which blends restorative justice, participatory justice, and structural power theories, has been adopted to understand the complex forces that shape victim participation. The study presents important, yet unique insights into the growing role of victims in international justice processes, and calls for the strengthening of victim-centred approaches that not only recognise the legal rights for participation, but also creatively integrate the social and emotional dimensions of justice.
The insights explicated in this study have significant implications for both policy and practice within the context of transitional justice. They provide much-needed guidance for international institutions on how to understand and better support victims to attain recognition, healing, and meaningful participation in judicial processes that have the potential to transform their lives and those of their societies.
Description
This dissertation examines how victims from the Lukodi community in northern Uganda experienced and perceived their participation in the International Criminal Court’s proceedings against Dominic Ongwen between 2015 and March 2025. It investigates the forms of victim participation, the challenges victims encountered, and their satisfaction with both the process and its outcomes.
The study is guided by the Triune Hybrid Model of Victim Participation (THM-VP), an original three-layered framework developed to analyse victim participation in international criminal justice. At its nucleus are the forms through which victims participate, including legal representation, testimony, submissions and reparations-related engagement. These are surrounded by the logistical, procedural, psychological and structural challenges that condition participation, while the outer layer captures victims’ satisfaction, understood through recognition, healing, empowerment and restoration.
By integrating participatory justice theory, restorative justice theory and the structural theory of power, the THM-VP moves beyond models that treat participation as a fixed procedural status. It explains participation as an emergent outcome of the interaction between victims’ agency, institutional barriers and broader structures of power. Drawing on victims’ lived experiences in Lukodi, the dissertation assesses whether formal participation in the Ongwen case translated into meaningful agency, recognition and justice, and offers lessons for more victim-centred international criminal justice practice.
Keywords
Victim Participation, International Criminal Court (ICC), International Criminal Justice, Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), Victims’ Perceptions, Victims’ Satisfaction, Victims’ Experiences, Restorative Justice Theory, Participatory Justice Theory, Structural Theory of Power, Northern Uganda, Dominic Ongwen, The Triune Hybrid Model of Victim Participation (THM-VP)
Citation
Okwir, Martin Dennis (2026). An International Criminal Court Courtroom in Every Parish: Victims' Experiences and Perceptions in the Case of Dominic Ongwen [Master’s dissertation, Gulu University].