How Special is the Special Court's Outreach Section?

Abstract:     
This article attempts to evaluate the work of the Outreach Section of the Special Court for Sierra Leone. In it, I try to answer two questions: (1) how innovative was the Outreach Section?; and (2) has the Outreach Section been successful? In contrast to earlier commentators, I try to answer these questions using empirical data, including Sierra Leonean attitudes toward and knowledge about the court as measured in various surveys. I conclude that the Outreach Section has been modestly innovative, but that it has largely failed in its primary goal of educating Sierra Leoneans about the Special Court – while virtually all Sierra Leoneans are aware of the existence of the Special Court, very few have a good understanding of what it does.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 29

Keywords: Special Court for Sierra Leone, SCSL, outreach, international criminal court, empirical, Sierra Leone

JEL Classification: K33

working papers series