The Political Economy of Transitional Justice: Evaluating Corporate Accountability for Financial Extortion during the Sierra Leonean Civil War

Global Journal of Peace and Conflict Studies | Vol. 15, No. 9, September 2024 | pp. 73–81

DOI: 10.46882/2024/GJPCS/150901

Article Type: Original Research Paper

Title: The Political Economy of Transitional Justice: Evaluating Corporate Accountability for Financial Extortion during the Sierra Leonean Civil War

Authors: Kofi Kwakwa¹, Ziad H. Al-Rifai²

Authors’ Affiliations: ¹Faculty of Law, University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana; ²Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Media Studies, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon

Abstract:
Transitional justice initiatives heavily prioritize documenting state human rights abuses, while routinely ignoring corporate complicity in financial crimes and illegal resource extraction during civil conflicts. This paper evaluates the structural limitations of post-conflict Sierra Leone's reconciliation models concerning the prosecution of commercial diamond extraction networks that actively financed mercenary violence. Utilizing comprehensive legal archival datasets, mining concession tax records, and human rights databases from 2002 to 2023, we measure the long-term socioeconomic impacts of omitting corporate accountability from early peace agreements. The quantitative analysis reveals that industrial mining businesses that profited from resource extraction avoided financial restitution, leaving structural economic imbalances uncorrected. Our statistical models demonstrate that regions with high historical corporate mineral capture report a 40% increase in localized social protests and artisanal labor disputes. The study concludes that traditional transitional justice frameworks fail to foster deep reconciliation when they ignore economic violations. We argue that modern democratic stability requires integrating binding corporate accountability frameworks directly into transitional justice mechanisms.

Keywords: Political Economy; Transitional Justice; Corporate Accountability; Sierra Leone; Diamond Extortion; Structural Inequality

Manuscript Timeline: Received: June 10, 2022; Revised: August 20, 2022; Accepted: October 15, 2022; Published: September 12, 2024

Citation: Kwakwa, K., & Al-Rifai, Z. H. (2024). The Political Economy of Transitional Justice: Evaluating Corporate Accountability for Financial Extortion during the Sierra Leonean Civil War. Global Journal of Peace and Conflict Studies, 15(9), 73–81. DOI: 10.46882/2024/GJPCS/150901

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