Armed conflict, violence, climate shocks, displacement and the COVID-19 pandemic have all contributed to the extremely complex humanitarian situation in the Sahel region of Africa. Their impact is felt, first and foremost, by civilians. Common threads running through the narratives of many of the articles in this issue of the Review point to the particular challenges facing women in the Sahel region – owing to their vulnerable position – and the key role they play in their communities.

These women have to cope on their own: their fathers, husbands and sons are either in detention or missing. The challenges they face include obtaining food and access to care, education and employment, as well as rebuilding their lives and homes. In their daily struggle for survival, they also remain prime targets for violent attacks.

Two humanitarian issues arise here. The first and most obvious, that of protection, should not overshadow the increasingly significant issue of women's inclusion and participation. In fact, there has been a shift away from viewing women as vulnerable potential victims and towards recognizing them as effective – even key – agents of change in the region, thus highlighting the importance of investing in women, the driving force behind efforts to rebuild society.1

The stories of the women from the Sahel region featured below2 reflect their desire to rebuild society and their capacity for resilience.

Yero Baldeh has over twenty-four years of professional experience, seventeen of which with the African Development Bank. He is currently the Director of the Transition States Coordination Office at the African Development Bank (AfDB), Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire. Prior to this, he was the Country Manager for Ghana, Lead Coordinator of the Transition States Coordination Office and Country Manager in Sierra Leone, among other posts. Before he joined the Bank in 2004, Dr Baldeh was the Head of The Gambia Social Development Fund.

Amel Hamza has more than thirty years of management and technical experience on gender and related topics, with over a decade of successful track record in the AfDB. She is currently leading the AfDB's roll-out and implementation of the 2021-2025 Gender Strategy. Prior to joining the AfDB, Dr Hamza worked in academia in her home country of Sudan and held different positions in UNICEF and UN Women. She holds a master's degree in Development Studies with specialization in Women and Development from the Institute of Social Studies, from the Netherlands.

Bakary Sambe is Regional Director of the Timbuktu African Institute for Peace Studies (Dakar, Niamey, Bamako). Founder of the Observatory of Religious Radicalism and Conflicts in Africa, Sambe is a teacher–researcher at Gaston Berger University in St Louis (Senegal).

Sambe's current work focuses on endogenous strategies, cross-border dynamics and experimenting with agile approaches in crisis zones. An expert working with the United Nations, European Union, African Union, etc., he has notably designed and led advocacy for the establishment of the regional group for the prevention and fight against radicalization of the G5 Sahel (CELLARD), assisted in the process of developing national strategies in Niger, Burkina Faso and the Central African Republic, and produced the first manual of good resilience practices.

In addition to numerous articles, Sambe has published several books: Islam et diplomatie : la politique africaine du Maroc (2010–2011), Boko Haram : du problème nigérian à la menace régionale (2015) and Contestations islamisées : Le Sénégal entre diplomatie d'influence et islam politique (2018).

Lazare W. Zoungrana has been doing humanitarian work for the Burkinabe Red Cross Society for more than twenty years and has been its secretary-general since 2010.

Trained in sociology, with a research master's degree in information and communication science, Mr Zoungrana has brought his skills to a range of humanitarian activities, from development and emergency programmes to the organizational development and capacity-building of the Burkinabe Red Cross. He is specialized in project management, gender and education, international humanitarian law and training trainers in various aspects of humanitarian action.

Mr Zoungrana has coordinated several operations led by the Burkinabe Red Cross, including: providing assistance to victims of the Ouagadougou floods in 2009, victims of terrorist attacks in Ouagadougou, Malian refugees and people affected by armed violence in the country; and carrying out activities in response to meningitis epidemics and, most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the international level, Mr Zoungrana has sat as a committee chairman or a panellist on various round tables. He was a member of the multinational team charged with assessing and coordinating the humanitarian response to the earthquake in Haiti and has been a member of several multinational working groups, including one tasked with developing the restoring family links strategy for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.

Gilles Yabi is the founder and executive director of West Africa Think Tank (WATHI). He guides and supervises the activities of the think tank, whose permanent team is based in Dakar, Senegal. WATHI is an open platform for the production and dissemination of knowledge and proposals on all issues crucial to the present and future of West Africa and other regions of the continent. Mr Yabi is regularly invited to share his thoughts on political, economic, educational and security issues with various African and international organizations. He also has a long experience of interacting with the media, and has been publishing columns on African political and economic issues for the past fifteen years. He hosts the weekly column “Ça fait débat avec WATHI” on Radio France Internationale.

On 29 June 2021, the Review talked to representatives of the French Ministry for the Armed Forces and Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs about France's involvement in Mali and the Sahel region.* From the Ministry for the Armed Forces, the Review spoke to Claire Legras, Director of Legal Affairs, Camille Faure, Deputy Director of Legal Affairs, and Philippe Lejeune, Head of the Operational Legal Unit of the Armed Forces Staff. From the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, the interviewees were François Alabrune, Director of Legal Affairs, and Sandrine Barbier, Deputy Director of Legal Affairs.

While the rules of international humanitarian law (IHL) on humanitarian access are clear, implementing them at the national level can become challenging. To ensure full respect for those rules, States must strike a balance between preserving the security of the civilian population and humanitarian organizations and ensuring that people have access to goods and services that enable the full enjoyment of their rights. This article seeks to show how the IHL rules governing humanitarian access apply in the context of the Sahel region of Africa. First, it describes the multiplicity of armed actors that are present in the Sahel and the humanitarian situation in this region. Next, it addresses the legal framework applicable to humanitarian access under IHL applicable in non-international armed conflicts. The article then examines the measures that have been taken by the States of the Sahel to protect the civilian population and humanitarian organizations, such as the resort to declaration of states of emergency and to armed escorts. It is shown that these measures can hinder the delivery of impartial humanitarian assistance. Finally, the article describes some creative solutions that have been put forward by Sahelian States to facilitate humanitarian access. Examples of these include the creation of coordination mechanisms to foster dialogue on humanitarian access where all concerned actors are invited to participate; the adoption of domestic legal frameworks related to humanitarian access through which this access is proclaimed and its violation sanctioned; and the recognition of humanitarian exemptions in counterterrorism laws.

After the crisis in Mali erupted in 2012, numerous conflicts have broken out in countries of the Sahel and resulted in many violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law. While these bodies of law were designed primarily to protect individuals or categories of individuals, they also require that reparations be made for harm suffered by the victims of such violations. Despite the ever-growing number of victims in conflicts in the Sahel in general and in Niger in particular, it is evident that States of the Sahel have not made a priority of meeting the reparation obligation, which falls mainly on them. However, the specific nature of the harm suffered (as a result, in part, of civilians being targeted) in terrorist-related conflicts calls for a prompt reaction by States, as they are the true targets of acts perpetrated by terrorist-designated non-State armed groups, while individuals and communities are only proxy victims. A legal, institutional and operational framework for victim reparations needs to be set up by the States, but that has yet to happen, even though it is one of the conditions of durable conflict resolution. The scattered initiatives that have been launched in Niger would gain from being brought together under a holistic framework with a global strategic vision.

Burkina Faso has suffered attacks most often attributed to unidentified armed individuals. These attacks occur in an area which is under the influence of terrorist groups as well as criminal groups. Instability does not stem from a prior armed conflict, but from a continuous deterioration resulting from unclaimed attacks. The challenge then is to know whether international humanitarian law (IHL) can apply in a context where the perpetrators of violence are not identified. This requires visiting the conditions of applicability of IHL in non-international armed conflict to assess their relevance in a context of production of violence without identification of the perpetrators.

In the Sahel, host communities are among those most affected by recurrent internal displacement, but they are often ignored in responses to displacement. Furthermore, their situation has attracted little attention from researchers or other observers. The present article will argue that it is essential to provide these communities with adequate protection, especially as they play a leading role in providing humanitarian protection and assistance to internally displaced persons (IDPs). The article begins by examining the legal instruments that protect populations affected by forced displacement, in order to identify and present the legal protection they offer to IDP host communities. The article will then analyze and highlight the advantages of fully applying this protection. It will show that the recurrent violence and breaches of the law that these communities suffer are impeding the full realization of those advantages. Finally, the article shall propose solutions that would overcome the deficiencies noted and hence ensure enhanced protection for IDP host communities in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.

The number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) has drastically increased over the last five years in the countries of the Sahel region. This situation is linked to the rise of countless armed groups, especially in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. The present paper aims to assess the existence and contours of a right to water for IDPs in the Sahel region. In doing so, it examines international humanitarian law and other international law regimes to determine the legal foundations that protect and guarantee IDPs’ right to water. The contribution provides the contextual background of armed conflict-induced displacement in the Sahel region, and demonstrates the existence of a right to water for IDPs in the Sahel countries. This right derives not only from international humanitarian law but also from other complementary international rules applicable even in conflict situations. The paper finally discusses and recommends legal and practical ways in which IDPs’ right to water can be better realized in the current context of the Sahel region.

Ambassador Abdou Abarry, Permanent Representative of Niger to the United Nations (UN), presented his credentials to UN Secretary-General Antonío Guterres on 4 June 2019. Mr Abarry had previously been the Special Representative of the Chairperson of the African Union (AU) Commission and AU Head of Office in the Democratic Republic of the Congo since 2014. Prior to that, he headed the AU Liaison Office to the Economic Community of West African States in Abuja, Nigeria, beginning in 2011.

A career diplomat, Mr Abarry was Ambassador to Belgium from 2003 to 2011, accredited concurrently to Greece, Luxembourg and the Netherlands; he also had accreditation to the UN Offices in Geneva and Vienna, the European Union Commission and the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States. He was Diplomatic Adviser to the President of the Republic of Niger and Director-General of State Protocol from 1999 to 2003, and served as a Counsellor at Niger's Permanent Mission in New York from 1992 to 1997.

Mr Abarry holds a master's degree in international relations from the Ecole Supérieure d'Administration et des Carrières Juridiques de Lomé, in Togo, and earned a diploma from the International Relations Institute of Cameroon. He has received honorific distinctions including the Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Mérite du Niger (1999), Grand-Croix de la Couronne du Royaume de Belgique (2011), Commandeur de l'Ordre National du Niger (2014) and Officier de la Légion d'Honneur Française (2014).

Conflicts are increasingly analysed as exhibiting a stealth complexity in which triggers and consequences are intricately linked to climate, environmental degradation and the struggle to control a finite pool of natural resources. The climate crisis is a multifaceted reality and, against this background, many pressing priorities compete with each other. The disruptive effect of climate variability and change on food systems is particularly acute and constitutes a direct and tangible threat to livelihoods globally. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate and discuss the importance of food systems under a climate crisis in exacerbating conflicts in the Sahelian region and propose interventions beyond and complementary to the usual military and security solutions. We demonstrate for the Sahel that (i) climate hazards are frequent and exposure to climate variability is high, (ii) hotspots of high climate variability and conflict exist, and (iii) impact pathways by which climate exacerbates food systems that can lead to conflicts are documented in the literature. While these three findings suggest clear links between conflict and climate, we find that (iv) current peace indices do not include climate and food systems indicators and therefore provide an uncomplete picture, and (v) food systems programming for climate adaptation has so far not explicitly considered peace and security outcomes. Furthermore, we propose that food systems programming that truly tackles the climate crisis should take more explicit account of peace and security outcomes in conflict-affected areas.

This article examines legal aspects of climate-induced forced displacement in the Sahel region of North Africa. The Sahel region is being adversely affected by climate change, leading to the displacement of thousands of people, both cross-border migrants and internally displaced persons (IDPs). The conventional stance is that refugee status does not extend to individuals displaced as a result of natural or environmental catastrophes and that consequently a normative gap exists in international refugee law. However, the position in international law may not be as clear-cut as this conventional view assumes, in light of recent trends which are moving towards the recognition of the rights of such displaced people. It seems clear that under the terms of the 1951 Refugee Convention, such people are excluded from refugee status, and while the situation is less obvious under the Organisation of African Unity Convention on Refugees in Africa, it appears that the end result is the same, although there seems to be an increasing desire for recognition of refugee status under that treaty. Other regional treaties are also taking tentative steps in this direction; the Kampala Convention on IDPs is especially noteworthy because it makes express references to circumstances such as natural disasters. A human rights approach may offer hope to displaced people, since climate change can impact on a number of rights – particularly significant is the decision of the UN Human Rights Committee in Teitiota v. New Zealand which acknowledged the harmful impact of climate change. The response, legislative and otherwise, of five Sahel States towards forcibly displaced persons is examined in this article.

The purpose of this article is to advocate for new methods of studying international law. Hissène Habré, former President of Chad, was convicted by a hybrid tribunal in Dakar. Our book on this judicial process (The President on Trial: Prosecuting Hissène Habré, Oxford University Press, 2020) develops a novel empirical format of first-person testimonials, followed by expert analyses, to trace and contextualize the decades-long story of attempts to bring Habré to justice. The empirical materials collected in our book demonstrate that the Habré trial challenges a linear distribution of power from international (global) actors to local, demonstrating rather a series of horizontal relations between the local and international. Based on this research experience, the article lays out the method we developed. It facilitates an assessment of the legal and political impact of court decisions, routines and broader bureaucratic politics through which the practices of judging are constructed. “Justice” does not speak with one voice; it is made up of multiple actors with different professional interests and personal goals. It is also impacted by power dynamics and by the structure of the institution, including by institutional routine and legal bureaucracy.