The prospects of accountability are currently slim, but non-prosecutorial avenues could help balance the quest for justice and peace.
The Horn of Africa appears once again on the brink of renewed conflict. The situation has moved beyond shifting alliances, with Ethiopia and Eritrea reportedly deploying armed forces closer to the border. Against this backdrop of escalating tensions, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed made two notable public remarks within roughly a month: a parliamentary address on February 4 and a rare Tigrinya-language interview on March 3.
Beyond assigning blame and offering political commentary on the unfolding tensions, the Prime Minister’s remarks have drawn renewed attention to an aspect of the 2020–2022 war in Tigray that had not previously been officially acknowledged by the Ethiopian government—atrocities committed by Eritrean forces during the conflict.
On February 4, the Prime Minister told Parliament that Eritrean forces committed grave violations in Tigray during the 2020–2022 war between the federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). As he reiterated in the March 3 interview, these violations included the destruction of homes and infrastructure, mass executions of civilians, and widespread looting of factories and pharmaceuticals in towns such as Shire, Aksum and Adwa.
He stated that the Ethiopian government sought to halt these abuses by dispatching senior envoys—reportedly the then–foreign minister and Deputy Prime Minister. He further suggested that the decision by the federal government not to capture Mekelle, Tigray’s capital city, in October 2022, and instead pursue the Pretoria Agreement, was partly motivated by concerns that Eritrean forces would continue committing atrocities were the city to be exposed.
Eritrea’s violations in Tigray have been extensively documented by international and national bodies. Allegations include crimes against humanity, torture, war crimes and conflict-related sexual violence. According to some, these atrocities were committed with genocidal intent.
In both the interview and the parliamentary address, the Prime Minister appeared to attribute the current deterioration in relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea primarily to wartime atrocities, rather than to disputes over Red Sea access, which many observers consider a central driver of the looming conflict in the region. Yet despite this acknowledgement, no clear strategy has been articulated for pursuing accountability for alleged international crimes committed by Eritrean forces.
The absence of a clear accountability strategy regarding Eritrean forces has also complicated Ethiopia’s post-Pretoria transitional justice and DDR processes. While the federal government attributes delays in implementation to the TPLF, authorities in Tigray argue that the lack of a clear approach to addressing Eritrean violations undermines the credibility of the processes. This position was publicly reaffirmed in December 2025 by the Prime Minister’s advisor Getachew Reda, formerly the spokesperson of the TPLF and President of the Interim Regional Administration.
Addressing atrocities committed by Eritrean forces is essential both to provide justice for victims and to signal a rejection of impunity for cross-border violations. Yet, pursuing justice in this context is inherently complex, shaped by political, legal, and security considerations. Accountability for cross-border atrocities typically depends on a combination of domestic, international, regional, and diplomatic mechanisms.
Both Ethiopia and Eritrea can investigate and prosecute these alleged crimes. Ethiopia retains territorial jurisdiction over international crimes committed on its soil, and both its Constitution and the international conventions to which it is a party impose obligations to take necessary measures to investigate and prosecute such violations. Furthermore, pursuing accountability for Eritrea’s crimes, alongside those committed by its own domestic forces, would complement Ethiopia’s commitment to fulfil its promises under the Pretoria Peace Agreement and its transitional justice policy.
Practical obstacles, such as a lack of custody over suspects and likely limited cooperation from Eritrea, could complicate prosecutions. However, Ethiopia could adopt broader approaches than its transitional justice policy’s narrow emphasis on extradition requests. This may include structured case mapping, followed by symbolic indictments and arrest warrants for Eritrean perpetrators to affirm victims’ rights and preserve future pathways to justice.
Nonetheless, any attempt by Ethiopia to pursue accountability for Eritrean forces will likely be perceived as selective—and potentially as an effort to scapegoat Eritrea—unless its own transitional justice process is implemented effectively to ensure accountability for crimes allegedly committed by Ethiopian federal forces, Tigray forces, and Amhara militias during the conflict in Tigray.
On its part, Eritrea has jurisdiction over crimes allegedly committed by its citizens. It could, in theory, prosecute its personnel under its own Penal Code of 2015, which provides jurisdiction over breaches of international law committed outside its territory. The Code criminalises international crimes, including genocide, regardless of Eritrea’s non-party status to the Genocide Convention.
Should Eritrea prove unwilling or unable to undertake credible prosecutions, Ethiopia or another state could bring a case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to clarify Eritrea’s obligations to prosecute or extradite those responsible for international crimes allegedly committed in Tigray. However, the obligation to prosecute or extradite (aut dedere aut judicare) is not a uniform or automatically triggered duty under international law. The ICJ has consistently avoided universalising this duty, treating it as treaty-specific rather than a general rule of customary law.
Its existence, scope, and enforceability depend on specific treaty regimes, the nature of the underlying violations (e.g., grave breaches, serious violations of international humanitarian law, crimes against humanity, genocide, torture), and Eritrea’s treaty commitments. This makes identifying a jurisdictional basis difficult. The Convention Against Torture, binding on both Ethiopia and Eritrea and containing an ICJ compromissory clause, offers a potential avenue. A breached bilateral agreement governing Eritrean forces’ involvement in Tigray, if one exists and includes an ICJ compromissory clause, could provide an additional jurisdictional basis.
Where domestic prosecutions face bottlenecks, as is likely in this case, foreign states with universal-jurisdiction frameworks may pursue cases against Eritrean commanders. Such proceedings require rigorous documentation—reliable witness statements, forensic and digital evidence, and linkage analysis to satisfy the high evidentiary standards applied by specialised war-crimes units.
Another avenue would be the establishment of an international accountability mechanism, such as an ad hoc tribunal mandated to investigate and prosecute atrocity crimes in Tigray. In principle, such a tribunal could be created through a multilateral initiative involving the United Nations and regional bodies such as the African Union. This pathway, however, would require substantial political will, sustained intergovernmental cooperation, and considerable financial and logistical support.
International criminal accountability is further limited because neither Ethiopia nor Eritrea is a State Party to the Rome Statute, leaving a Security Council referral as the only route to the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction. Yet such a referral is highly unlikely: the absence of active hostilities reduces the Council’s sense of urgency, deep geopolitical divisions among the permanent members — already evident in their inactions during the conflict — may impede consensus, and earlier efforts to secure a referral for Eritrea’s post-1991 abuses, including recommendations by UN bodies and independent experts, were unsuccessful.
Overall, the accountability pathways outlined above offer limited confidence. There are, however, non-prosecutorial avenues available. Comparative experiences enshrined in the African Union Transitional Justice Policy demonstrate that prosecutions alone, even when attainable, rarely address the structural drivers of conflict or the relational harms that sustain interstate tension and community-level mistrust. As such, complementary cross-border truth seeking and reparations aimed at reconciliation should be pursued.
In cross-border conflicts, long-standing political grievances, border insecurities, competing national narratives, and deep-seated mistrust often endure even when individual perpetrators are held accountable. An exclusive reliance on prosecutions without parallel peacebuilding efforts can trigger political backlash, obstruct evidence-gathering, or prompt parties to withdraw from cooperative processes, thereby undermining the pursuit of justice itself. Meaningful accountability, therefore, may require a deliberate integration of complementary peace pathways.
Peace will shape the extent to which both parties are willing to confront and address the crimes committed in Tigray, as no credible transitional justice process, be it criminal accountability or truth seeking and reparations, can be implemented in an active or unstable conflict environment. In fact, peacebuilding is imperative, as it could be the only way to avert the war that is coming and avoid another cycle of violence. Yet, meaningful and durable peace remains equally complex.
A peace process between Ethiopia and Eritrea might have benefited from IGAD’s institutional support had the latter remained a member state. Nonetheless, it could still be facilitated through the African Union Commission, which could view such a role as a continuation of its peacebuilding role under the Pretoria Agreement. The process could generate a shared account of violations, clarify patterns of harm, strengthen mutual acknowledgement, and offer material and symbolic reparation.
A strategy to reduce friction between the two countries should look beyond Eritrea’s conduct in the recent war in Tigray. As the Ethiopian Prime Minister noted, ‘tensions between the two countries “go back to the time of Eritrea’s accession to statehood,’ highlighting a much longer history of mistrust, contested sovereignty, protracted conflict and unresolved grievances. Unaddressed abuses against non-combatants during the 1998–2000 border war—across both sides—constitute an enduring part of this tension.
Any such strategy must also take account of post-war geopolitical developments following the Pretoria Agreement. Whether or not current tensions stem directly from atrocities committed by Eritrean forces in Tigray, the question of Red Sea access has become central to regional politics. This issue is now intertwined with Eritrea’s shifting alignments and the realignment of armed groups in Amhara and Tigray, producing a more complex and volatile political landscape that any peace process must grapple with.
Moreover, the role of external actors is equally consequential. Tensions in the Horn of Africa are seldom confined to the states directly involved. Regional rivalries, great-power competition, and cross-border security interventions have historically shaped the incentives of both Ethiopia and Eritrea. As a result, de-escalation cannot be understood solely as a bilateral matter; international and regional powers can either reinforce entrenched positions or facilitate a transition toward dialogue and stability.
For these reasons, meaningful rapprochement will require multi-layered and intertwined peace-making efforts. At the international level, constructive engagement by competing external actors is essential. At the bilateral level, negotiations must enable Ethiopia and Eritrea to cultivate a shared commitment to rebuilding trust and addressing outstanding grievances. Nationally, Ethiopia must advance internal peacebuilding between the federal government and non-state actors. At the local level, deeper dialogue among non-state actors will be needed to consolidate stability and mitigate the ripple effects of interstate tensions.
Despite the current fallout, peace between Ethiopia and Eritrea is attainable. The two countries achieved a notable rapprochement in recent years, significant enough to resume people-to-people relations and to contribute to the Prime Minister’s award of the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize.
As a bottom line, regional and international initiatives aimed at de-escalating tensions in the Horn of Africa must not sideline justice for victims of atrocity crimes in Tigray. Balancing peace and justice requires careful calibration. Accountability processes should not be instrumentalised to undermine or delegitimise peace negotiations; yet, a credible and sustainable peace framework must incorporate justice while addressing the long-standing geopolitical grievances, persistent border insecurities, ideological divergences, and the deep psychological and political legacies that have shaped the often-violent bilateral relationship between Ethiopia and Eritrea.
(Tadesse Simie Metekia is a senior researcher, Special Projects at the Institute for Security Studies, Addis Ababa. Views expressed in this article do not represent the views of the Reporter.)
Contributed by Tadesse Simie Metekia
