ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that civilians living in northern Uganda suffered serious crimes at the hands of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and government soldiers. These crimes were punishable according to standards of international criminal justice by following the rule of law, thereby justifying the International Criminal Court's (ICC) intervention to bring the perpetrators to justice. The Rome Statute, Article 1(3) provides for the establishment of an ICC sitting in The Hague, The Netherlands and charged it with ‘exercising its jurisdiction over persons for the most serious crimes of international concern, as referred to in this Statute’. The atrocities allegedly committed by the LRA were in violation of international law applicable to non-international armed conflicts. Criminal responsibility of non-state actors under international law has generated debate in scholarship. One of the lines of reasoning is that if non-sate actors have some right under international law, then they must have obligations under the same law.
