Communication 431/12 – Thomas Kwoyelo v. Uganda pursuant to Article 60 of the African Charter, the Commission deems it fitting that it pronounces itself on this issue given the lack of clear guidance on ensuring compliance with the requirements of the African Charter when states resort to the use of amnesty as necessary means for pursuing the objectives of achieving peace and justice in times of transition from violence to peace. This is further necessitated by the position that the Commission took herein above in finding violation of Article 3 of the Charter in the application of amnesty, which, unless it is read carefully, may be wrongly interpreted as sanctioning blanket amnesty. 285. While amnesties have a long pedigree in peace negotiations and have historically been commonly used as part of peace settlements even for armed conflicts manifesting most atrocious acts, 66 developments in international law have in recent years laid down rules regulating the use of amnesties in peace settlements. These rules of international law aiming at giving force to human rights and IHL principles prescribe the conditions that should be met when societies have to have recourse to amnesties as a necessary means of ending the continuation of armed violence and the violations that inevitably accompany such violence. 286. Amnesty67 can be defined as the legal measures that are used in transitional processes, often as part of peace settlements, to limit or preclude the application of criminal processes and, in some cases, civil actions against certain individuals or categories of individuals for violent actions committed in contravention of applicable human rights and IHL rules. While amnesties are usually applied for conduct committed before they have been established, there have been instances where they have been used to retroactively nullify legal liability previously established.68 Amnesties commonly specify a category or categories of Andreas O’Shea, Amnesty for Crimes in International Law and Practice (2002), p. 1 The word ‘amnesty’ is derived from the Greek word amnestia, which is closely linked with another Greek term amnestikakeia, which means forgetting legally wrongful acts. Today, amnesty is generally understood as immunity in law from either criminal or civil legal consequences or from both for wrongs committed in the past in a political context. 68 Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Rule-of-Law Tools for Post-Conflict State: Amnesties, (2009), p. 5. 66 67 76 62nd Ordinary Session, 25 April – 9 July 2018