Embedding gender competence and intersectional harm at the reparations proceedings: the Al Hassan case before the ICC
By Juliana Laguna Trujillo and Valeria Babără from Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice
On 28 April 2026, Trial Chamber X of the International Criminal Court (ICC) handed down its Reparations Order in the Al Hassan case. In a unanimous decision, the Chamber set Al Hassan’s liability at €7,250,000, estimated about 65,202 potentially eligible victims, both direct and indirect, and opted for collective, community-based reparations. Individualised elements are present but limited, with the package centred on rehabilitation, plus symbolic and satisfaction measures.
In June 2024, ICC judges convicted Al Hassan, former de facto chief of the Islamic Police in Timbuktu and member of Ansar Dine, a group associated with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Mali between 1 April 2012 and 28 January 2013. However, the Trial Chamber did not convict him of gender-based crimes.
In the context of the reparations proceedings, Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice (WIGJ) led an amici curiae submission with other civil society organisations and individual gender justice experts. The submission requested the Chamber to assess harm holistically and through an intersectional lens, and to recognise that the religious persecution in this case was inseparable from a system of gendered oppression. The Order takes up our arguments in three concrete ways.
First, rather than isolating harms into neat categories, the Chamber embraced a holistic reading of the harm suffered, describing intersectional analysis as a central part of the exercise (para. 73). It then set aside a specific sub-section to address the social impact of the gender dimension of religious persecution. Women and girls, the Chamber found, endured distinct moral, material, and community harm, and, crucially, the gendered dimension of the persecution impacted the whole community (paras. 122-124). Beyond female victims, the Chamber recognises that rules and enforcement around dress, movement, schooling, and public life altered the fabric of Timbuktu’s community life, and that reparations, from planning through design to implementation, have to meet that reality across all socio-economic rehabilitation projects.
Second, the Chamber also established a presumption of victimhood for anyone who lived in Timbuktu during the relevant period of the persecution, from early May 2012 to 29 January 2013, including those who fled during that time (para. 63). Drawing on the amici submission and aligning with positions taken by the Legal Representatives of Victims, the Registry, and the Trust Fund for Victims (TFV), the approach answers a long-standing call: treat the population as direct victims of religious persecution, instead of restricting redress to people able to prove individual episodes. Where displacement and insecurity make documentation unrealistic, a workable presumption is what allows a victim-centred process to exist in practice.
Third, Chamber directed the TFV to develop rehabilitation programmes in close consultation with victims and to apply a gender-sensitive approach (para. 204). Women and girls must be properly included, the harms that are specific to them must be addressed, and the risks and barriers they face in accessing reparations must be taken seriously. Educational support, particularly, is meant to respond to the harm caused by school closures and lost educational opportunities, especially for women and girls. The Chamber treated the ‘do no harm’ principle as paramount, and required that consultations pay sustained attention to accessibility, meaningful participation, privacy, and safety.
The relevance of this reparations order lies in the implementation of an intersectional and holistic approach in its analysis of the harm, based on the convicted crimes. For reparations practitioners, it offers a helpful precedent. The lack of a gender persecution conviction did not prevent gender-competent reparations framework, because the Chamber’s harm analysis tracked the lived experience of the victims. Attention now shifts to implementation. The TFV must submit a draft implementation plan by 25 January 2027, and the real measure of success will be whether these findings become concrete, safe, accessible support for victims, in a context where armed groups continue to exert influence over Timbuktu and security remains fragile. We will keep following the case and welcome exchange with others engaged in intersectional and gender-competent reparations work.
This article was first published in the Community Corner of our Just Reparation newsletter. These contributions are invaluable in enriching our collective understanding and fostering meaningful dialogue within the reparation community of practice. If you would like to be featured, we encourage you to submit your contributions to [email protected].