But in Ivory Coast (officially known as Côte d'Ivoire), the delivery of post-conflict justice appears to be at odds with the restoration of peace and economic development. While investors and creditors praise the government’s performance, human-rights groups warn of “winner’s justice”—of the ICC and Ivorian courts prosecuting only Gbagbo’s camp while leaving warlords and militia leaders who supported Ouattara unpunished. And now, even this one-sided justice may be in jeopardy. In the last few months, the government has cut a series of political deals, freeing key Gbagbo aides and luring others back from exile. Instead of bolstering the norms of post-conflict justice that institutions like the ICC were set up to enforce, the still-fragile revival of this crucial West African nation may do just the opposite. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

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The need for post-conflict justice in Ivory Coast was identified as soon as the crisis ended, not only by groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, but also by the new government, which requested an ICC investigation as early as May 2011. The purpose of the ICC, which was set up in 2002 under a treaty that now counts 122 members, is to prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity when local prosecution is unlikely or difficult. In October 2011, the ICC determined that the post-election events met its standard for prosecution, in a report that detailed numerous atrocities—the majority by pro-Gbagbo forces, but many by pro-Ouattara forces as well—that had occurred in Abidjan and a volatile region of western Ivory Coast. The prosecution indicted Gbagbo soon after—as an “indirect co-perpetrator” responsible for murder, rape and sexual violence, “persecution,” and “other inhuman acts”—and he was transferred to The Hague in November 2011. The court later issued indictments on similar charges for Gbagbo’s wife, Simone Ehivet Gbagbo, and the militia leader Charles Blé Goudé. The ICC has left open the possibility of prosecuting atrocities committed during and after the country’s 2002 civil war, but for now it is limiting itself to the 2010-11 post-election events, which it says may yield additional indictments.

The Gbagbo case is one of the most high-profile the ICC has ever undertaken: He is the first former head of state to appear before the court, and the only one it has ever held in custody. (The detention facility in The Hague has also hosted Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic and Liberia’s Charles Taylor, but separate international tribunals tried their cases.) And the proceedings against the former Ivorian leaders have moved relatively quickly. Most recently, the prosecutor, Gambian jurist Fatou Bensouda, submitted a hefty file of additional evidence that the judges had requested, and this week, the defense submitted confidential counter-arguments for dismissing the case. The judges will now either set a date for Gbagbo’s trial or dismiss the charges if they deem the prosecutor’s case insufficient.

Evaluated on its own merits, the Gbagbo case thus far encapsulates the ICC’s mission. First, it holds a leader responsible for atrocities committed down the chain of command. Second, it affords the defense a meticulous and smooth process to respond to the charges that in principle should assure a fair trial. In these ways, it upholds standards of post-conflict justice that have their roots in the Nuremberg trials after World War II and have become more defined over the last two decades with the formation of special international tribunals after the conflicts in Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone, ultimately producing a permanent body in the form of the ICC. Indeed, even though some major powers (notably the U.S., China, Russia, and India) refuse to join the ICC because they do not want to expose their nationals to prosecution, the court’s broad membership—including most of Europe and Latin America, and much of Africa—testifies to the spread of these standards. The core idea that justifies the existence of the tribunal is that acts of violence against civilians during conflicts are crimes, and warrant prosecution and punishment.