In South Sudan, a peace deal was signed in September 2018 to bring an end to a conflict that has killed and displaced hundreds of thousands of people since 2013. However, progress towards implementing the agreement has been slow, and transitional justice and accountability have been almost entirely overlooked.

On 20 January, the Rift Valley Institute launched a new book by former US diplomat, Elizabeth Shackelford, The Dissent Channel: American Diplomacy in a Dishonest Age. The book documents Shackelford’s experience in South Sudan in 2013–14 and exposes the costs of a longstanding trend of impunity for injustice, and the role of the international community in enabling it. In this panel discussion, Shackelford was joined by South Sudanese human rights experts and activists to discuss how this problem of impunity persists today and how South Sudan can overcome it.

Moderator

Nyagoah Tut Pur
Researcher

Discussants

Elizabeth Shackelford
Author

David Deng
Human Rights Lawyer

Gordon Lam
Executive Director at Dialogue and Research Institute