## Facts

- Dominic Ongwen, a Ugandan national, was abducted as a child by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and later became a senior commander (Sinia Brigade commander) during the LRA insurgency in northern Uganda.
- The case concerned crimes committed between July 2002 and 31 December 2005 in the context of an armed conflict between the LRA and the Government of Uganda.
- The prosecution alleged Ongwen’s responsibility for attacks on four internally displaced persons (IDP) camps—Pajule, Odek, Lukodi, and Abok—targeting civilians perceived by the LRA as enemies.
- The prosecution also alleged extensive sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), including crimes committed against seven women forced into Ongwen’s household and against women and girls within the Sinia Brigade.
- The charges included conscripting children under 15 and using them to participate actively in hostilities.
- An arrest warrant issued in 2005; Ongwen was transferred to ICC custody in 2015; charges were confirmed in 2016; trial opened in 2016; evidence closed in 2019; judgment issued in 2021.
- The trial chamber convicted Ongwen on 61 counts (out of 70 charged) of war crimes and crimes against humanity, acquitting him on the remaining counts.
- The trial chamber sentenced Ongwen to 25 years’ imprisonment; the appeals chamber later upheld both conviction and sentence.

## Issues

1. Whether Ongwen bore individual criminal responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the LRA, including through command-related and hierarchical modes of liability (indirect perpetration and indirect co-perpetration).
2. Whether grounds excluding criminal responsibility—mental disease or defect and duress—negated Ongwen’s culpability for crimes committed as an adult commander.
3. Whether forced marriage and forced pregnancy were legally cognizable and provable as distinct crimes within the Rome Statute framework, and how they should be characterized.
4. Whether cumulative convictions were permissible where overlapping offenses arose from the same conduct.
5. What burden and standard of proof governed grounds excluding criminal responsibility when their absence was necessary for conviction.

## Decision

- The trial chamber found Ongwen guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of 61 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for conduct tied to IDP-camp attacks, SGBV, and child soldiering.
- The trial chamber rejected mental disease or defect and duress as grounds excluding criminal responsibility.
- The trial chamber recognized forced marriage as an “other inhumane act” and treated forced pregnancy as a distinct crime, separating their harms from related SGBV offenses.
- The trial chamber imposed a sentence of 25 years’ imprisonment.
- On appeal, the appeals chamber unanimously upheld the conviction and (by majority) upheld the 25-year sentence, rejecting all raised grounds of appeal.
- The appeals chamber affirmed the permissibility of cumulative convictions where each offense contains materially distinct elements and protects different legal interests.

## Legal Principles

- An accused may be held individually responsible for mass crimes committed within a hierarchical armed group through indirect perpetration and indirect co-perpetration, depending on authority, contribution, and control over the commission of crimes.
- Mental disease or defect excludes responsibility only if it destroys the capacity to appreciate the unlawfulness or nature of conduct, or to control conduct; the court must evaluate expert and other evidence to determine whether the statutory threshold is met.
- Duress requires strict conditions, including an imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm and the absence of a reasonable alternative; seniority, autonomy, and operational authority may defeat the claim.
- Prior victimization (including childhood abduction) does not by itself exclude adult criminal responsibility; it may be relevant to sentencing but does not negate culpability absent a statutory defense.
- Forced marriage may constitute an “other inhumane act” when it imposes a coerced conjugal association causing severe suffering distinct from sexual slavery.
- Forced pregnancy protects reproductive autonomy and may be treated as reproductive violence, separate from other sexual crimes.
- Cumulative convictions are permissible when overlapping crimes each include a materially distinct element and protect different legal interests.
- Where conviction requires the absence of a ground excluding responsibility, the prosecution must establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the statutory conditions for the defense are not met.

## Conclusion

The ICC held Dominic Ongwen criminally responsible for a wide range of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed as an LRA commander, rejected mental disease and duress defenses despite his childhood abduction, affirmed distinct treatment of forced marriage and forced pregnancy as serious international crimes, and upheld cumulative convictions and a 25-year sentence on appeal.


Prosecutor v. Ongwen, ICC-02/04-01/15 (Int’l Crim. Ct. Trial Chamber IX 2021)