by Rene Wadlow
2021-02-09 11:45:27
The 4 February 2021 verdict of guilty against Dominic Ongwen by the International Criminal Court in the Hague highlights what Olara Otunnu, the then Special Representative on children in armed conflict of the U.N. Secretary-General, has written
At the heart of this growing phenomenon of mass violence and social disintegration is a crisis of values. Perhaps the most fundamental loss a society can suffer is the collapse of its own value system. Many societies exposed to protracted conflicts have seen their community values radically undermined if not shattered altogether. This has given rise to an ethical vacuum a setting in which international standards are ignored with impunity and where local value systems have lost their way.