The historic decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to confirm the charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity brought against fugitive Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) founder and leader Joseph Kony in absentia opens a new chapter for accountability in international criminal justice.
“The confirmation of these charges is a crucial step in holding Joseph Kony accountable for the grave crimes attributed to him,” the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) said, welcoming the court’s decision. “This ensures that Joseph Kony – once arrested – can immediately face trial on these charges.”
The decision, announced on November 6, 2025, marks the first time in the ICC’s history that charges have been confirmed against a suspect who was not present in the courtroom. It clears the way for Kony, who has evaded an international arrest warrant for 20 years, to be put on trial when he is eventually taken into custody, although legal experts have pointed out that several procedures, including appeals against the confirmation of the charges, are likely to precede any proceedings before a trial chamber.
The ruling also underlined the limits of international justice: even with the charges against Kony now confirmed, no further action can be taken until he is arrested, as the court’s founding treaty, the Rome Statute, only allows a trial to take place when the defendant is present.
Judge Althea Violet Alexis-Windsor (presiding), Judge Iulia Antoanella Motoc, and Judge Haykel Ben Mahfoudh found “substantial grounds to believe” that Kony is responsible for a campaign of terror in northern Uganda between 2002 and 2005. The allegations span brutal attacks on civilian camps, the systemic abduction and enslavement of children and women, and acts of direct, personal violence by Kony himself.
The prosecutor’s office reiterated its “unwavering commitment to pursuing justice for the victims” and called on all states to “intensify their cooperation” in executing the 2005 arrest warrant.
The decision is the culmination of a novel legal process the court initiated to prevent one of its most high-profile cases from languishing indefinitely. The confirmation hearing was held in September, also in Kony’s absence. To protect the suspect’s fundamental rights, the court appointed Peter Haynes, KC, to represent Kony’s interests and challenge the prosecution’s evidence.
Haynes asked for the proceedings to be conditionally stayed or paused, arguing that holding the hearing had already served the public purpose of airing the evidence, and that a formal confirmation of charges would prejudice Kony’s rights in a future trial, should one ever occur. The judges rejected the request.
In another unusual step, the court suspended the time limit for any appeals. This means that neither the prosecution nor the defence can challenge the decision to confirm the charges until Kony is surrendered to the court, effectively freezing the case in its current state.
The charges against Kony paint a devastating portrait of the LRA’s methods. They found substantial grounds to believe Kony and his commanders shared a “common plan” to attack civilians perceived as supporting the Ugandan government.
The charges detail a series of brutal, organised assaults on civilian settlements, eight targets such as the notorious 2003 attack on the Lwala Girls School and massacres at numerous internally displaced persons’ camps, including Barlonyo and Abia. These attacks involved murder, attempted murder, torture, and the widespread destruction of civilian property.
The judges also confirmed charges related to the LRA’s defining systemic crimes: the mass abduction and brutalisation of civilians. The court found that Kony is responsible for the enslavement and torture of “at least thousands” of children and women, which included the forced conscription of children under 15 years as soldiers. Central to this system was a campaign of widespread sexual violence, with hundreds of girls and women subjected to rape, forced marriage, forced pregnancy, and sexual slavery. The judges also accepted the novel charge of persecution, specifically based on the age of the child victims, a finding the OTP welcomed.
Finally, the ICC confirmed charges alleging Kony’s direct and personal role in the violence, including his personal commission of rape, enslavement, torture, and sexual slavery against two specific female victims who were allegedly abducted and forced to become his “wives”.
The judges concluded that for most of the crimes, Kony bore responsibility either as an “indirect co-perpetrator” for jointly implementing the LRA’s criminal plan with his commanders, or for “ordering and inducing” the crimes from his position of absolute authority.
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With or without Kony, victims want justice for LRA’s brutality on families
For more than two decades, Joseph Kony was one of the world’s most wanted men, notorious for a quasi-mystical insurgency that terrorised northern Uganda, displacing millions of people and forcing thousands of children, known as “night commuters”, to flee their homes each evening to avoid abduction.
In 2005, the ICC issued its first-ever arrest warrants for him and four of his top commanders – Vincent Otti, Okot Odhiambo, Dominic Ongwen, and Raska Lukwiya. Three of them have since died, while Ongwen was convicted by the ICC in 2021 and sentenced to serve 25 years in prison.
Kony, however, has remained a phantom. After being pushed out of Uganda, his forces scattered across South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and the Central African Republic. A joint Ugandan-US military operation to find him was called off in 2017.
