# Special Court for Sierra Leone The hybrid tribunal established in 2002 to try those bearing the greatest responsibility for crimes in the [[Sierra Leone Civil War]] — and the source of two genuine firsts in international criminal law. **The first international convictions for the recruitment and use of child soldiers** as a war crime, and **the first prosecution of forced marriage as a crime against humanity.** Both grew directly out of RUF and AFRC practice, and both have shaped prosecutions since, including at the International Criminal Court. Thirteen people were indicted across the RUF, the AFRC and the Civil Defence Forces. The court cost roughly **$212 million** and was chronically underfunded, dependent on voluntary contributions rather than assessed UN dues — a structural weakness of the hybrid model that it demonstrated as clearly as it demonstrated the model's strengths. Its most consequential case was **[[Charles Taylor]]**, convicted on **26 April 2012** and sentenced to **50 years** — the first head of state convicted by an international tribunal since Nuremberg. The precise basis is routinely misreported: he was convicted of **planning and of aiding and abetting**, and **acquitted on the joint criminal enterprise and command-responsibility theories.** He was not found to have ordered or commanded the RUF. That distinction is the tribunal's most interesting legacy for this cluster. Prosecuting **sponsorship** — the supply of arms, training and an export channel across a border — turned out to be evidentially harder than prosecuting command, and the court reached the lesser mode of liability. Every subsequent attempt to hold external sponsors accountable for a resource-financed insurgency runs into the same wall, including the current arguments about Rwandan responsibility for [[M23]]. [[Foday Sankoh]] died in custody in 2003 before trial. The court's residual functions passed to the Residual Special Court for Sierra Leone. ## See also [[Sierra Leone Civil War]] · [[Charles Taylor]] · [[Foday Sankoh]] · [[Blood Diamonds]] · [[Conflict Resources Atlas]]