nam 22 uu 4500 10.59704/d065657fae1351f6 DE-Verfassungsblog cr||||| 260428s2026||||xx#|||||o|||| ||| 0|eng|| 10.59704/d065657fae1351f6 doi eng 342 23 Vervoort, Jérémiah Nirina Author aut Mistaking the Tree for the Forest - On the Lumumba Trial and the Limits of Criminal Justice in Addressing Colonial Violence Vervoort, Jérémiah Nirina Verfassungsblog 2026-04-28 Text txt rdacontent Computermedien c rdamedia Online-Ressource cr rdacarrier More than six decades after the assassination of the first prime minister of the newly independent Congo, Patrice Lumumba, and his collaborators Maurice Mpolo and Joseph Okito, Étienne Davignon is the only defendant to stand trial before a criminal court for colonial-era war crimes. The Lumumba litigation marks a historic step forward. But it risks producing the illusion of a legally contained resolution of the colonial past – by individualizing responsibility for a structural crime and offering the Belgian state an opportunity for self-absolution. CC BY-SA 4.0 colonialism Congo Criminal Law War Crimes Max Steinbeis Verfassungsblog gGmbH Verfassungsblog 2366-7044 https://verfassungsblog.de/belgium-colonialism-lumumba/ raw object