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43 Case W. Res. J. Int'l L. 181 (2010-2011)
Lawfare: Where Justice Meets Peace

handle is hein.journals/cwrint43 and id is 187 raw text is: LAWFARE: WHERE JUSTICE MEETS PEACE

The Honorable Principal Judge of Uganda,
Justice James Ogoola*
I. INTRODUCTION
It is a singular honor to speak at this symposium on lawfare. I thank
most deeply the organizers of the symposium for their forward-looking
stance in choosing this evocative topic for a theme. In many senses, lawfare
is the opposite, indeed, the very antithesis of warfare. Warfare is the an-
cient, primitive, and largely discredited mode of dispute resolution between
nations and among peoples. Lawfare, on the other hand, has all the civi-
lized undertones of letting the law fare well in the struggle to achieve peace-
ful resolution of disputes. It has the ring of due process, of the doctrine of
the rule of law, and rule of reason-of the principles of fairness, equity, and
justice in bringing a peaceful end to a violent conflict. We have Case West-
ern Reserve University's erudite minds to thank for this creativity and ge-
nius of christening our theme.
Permit me, then, to add to this creative form here at Case Western
my own spurious contribution to the eminent topic before us. I have titled
my paper: Where Justice Meets Peace. A little introduction could be ap-
propriate to provide a brief background to the situation in Uganda, which is
the backdrop for this thesis.
For close to twenty-four years now, there has been a hot and horrid
war raging in Northern Uganda, that is the part to the south of Sudan and
the west of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The war has seen inno-
cent millions butchered or bludgeoned to death, the stomachs of pregnant
women ripped open with crude machetes (a cousin of the sword), lips,
limbs, and ears of old men lobbed off their emaciated torsos, the noisy ton-
gues of the inquisitive, yanked (root, stem, and all) out of the garrulous
mouth.' Young boys, as young as ten, caught in a spiral of mass abductions
James Ogoola is the Principal Judge of the High Court of Uganda. The following is a
piece prepared by Justice Ogoola in participation with the September 10, 2010 Lawfare!
symposium at Case Western Reserve University School of Law and is in part based on his
personal experiences.
1 See Prosecutor v. Kony, Case No. ICC-02/04-01/05, Warrant of Arrest for Joseph Kony
Issued on 8 July 2005 as Amended on 27 September 2005, $ 5 (Sept. 27, 2005), available at
http://www2.icc-cpi.int/iccdocs/doc/doc97185.PDF (alleging that since 1987, the Lord's
Resistance Army has carried out insurgent operations against Uganda's government, army,

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