On 29-31 October, the IIJ, in collaboration with the United States Department of State Bureau of Counterterrorism and the Ministry of Justice of the Kingdom of Morocco, convened 72 front-line counterterrorism practitioners and policymakers for a landmark West Africa Dialogue on Battlefield Evidence in Rabat, Morocco.
In West Africa and the Sahel, where terrorist threats are severe and attacks often occur in areas inaccessible to civilian law enforcement, information and material collected by military forces can be critical to criminal justice measures. Collecting, preserving, exploiting, sharing, and using battlefield evidence entails steep practical as well as legal challenges, however. Despite significant efforts to build regional capacity in this area, gaps persist. With this week’s Dialogue, the IIJ and our partners conducted a broad and in-depth examination of the evolving security situation’s impact on counterterrorism efforts, recent advances that countries in the region have made, and mechanisms for sharing material collected both by countries in the region and by outside and multilateral forces.
This in-depth dialogue between so many senior military and gendarmerie officers and high-level civilian law enforcement and prosecutorial and judicial practitioners — along with select international actors with relevant expertise — helped build increased trust and mutual understanding, and led to the identification of practical lessons learned and next steps to improve the collection, sharing, and use of battlefield evidence to counter terrorist threats in West Africa.
Participants included representatives of 15 governments — Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, France, Ghana, Guinea, Mauritania, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo — and 11 multilateral and non-governmental institutions, including the African Centre for Studies and Research on Terrorism, the Commission for International Justice and Accountability, Conflict Armament Research, the European External Action Service, the Institute for Security Studies, the International Academy for the Fight Against Terrorism, INTERPOL, NATO, the United Nations Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate, the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism, and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
In 2025, the IIJ will continue the work we have done since 2018 to advance efforts to use battlefield evidence to counter terrorism through criminal justice systems in West Africa and elsewhere. As an immediate next step, we look forward to the public launch of the Council of Europe (COE) Committee of Ministers of the Comparative Practices on Use of Information Collected in Conflict Zones as Evidence in Criminal Proceedings, developed through the partnership between the IIJ and the COE Committee on Counter-Terrorism (CDCT) Secretariat.