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12 Afr. J. Legal Stud. 1 (2019-2020)

handle is hein.journals/ajls12 and id is 1 raw text is: 


             AFRICAN  JOURNAL  OF LEGAL  STUDIES  12 (2019) 1-22
                                                                   OF  L A
 BRILL                                                              TMES
NIJIHOFF                                                          brill.com/ajis



Ethiopia-Eritrea Rapproachment
Two  Roads toAssab

       Joseph Eliot Magnet*
       Professor of Law, University of Ottawa, Canada
       jmagnet@uottawa.ca



       Abstract

On July 9, 2018 Ethiopia and Eritrea signed aJoint Declaration ofPeace and Friendship.
On July 17, 2018 Ethiopia announced plans for landlocked Ethiopia to use Eritrea's port
of Assab.
   Ethiopia's proposed use of Assab has implications for the indigenous Afar people
who have lived in the port area for two thousand years. The United Nations Special
Rapporteur on the situation of Human Rights in Eritrea and the United Nations
Commission  of Inquiry on Human  Rights in Eritrea found that Eritrea engaged in
widespread persecution of the Afar people, including evicting them from the port
area of Assab without any compensation. Both UN entities found that this persecution
amounted  to crimes against humanity.
   This paper considers the legal consequences for Ethiopia and Ethiopian officials
if they use the Assab port area taken from the Afar by criminal means: will they be
involving themselves in Eritrea's crimes? The paper then considers alternative ar-
rangements from the perspective of where the interests of Ethiopia, Eritrea and the
Afar are anticipated to converge. It concludes with proposals to resolve the present
untenable situation.



        Keywords

Eritrea - Ethiopia - Horn of Africa - Indigenous People - Afar - International Criminal
Law - Crimes against Humanity



1       Assab in Context

On  July 9, 2018, in a fast-moving process that transformed the geo-strategic
situation in the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia and Eritrea signed aJoint Declaration


@ KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2019  DOI:10.1163/17087384-12340041

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