Summary:
- The United Nations begins training Liberian prosecutors and investigators to address corruption as a human rights issue
- Liberia is preparing to establish war crimes and anti-corruption courts, but progress is slowed by funding
- Officials and experts call for more resource for the courts and warn that weak prosecutions, limited resources and delays continue to undermine accountability efforts
The United Nations began training Liberian prosecutors, investigators and civil society actors to tackle corruption through a human rights lens this week, as the country advances plans to establish a National Anti-Corruption Court and the long-delayed War and Economic Crimes Court.
The two-day initiative was conducted by the Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights, the U.N. agency responsible for advancing human rights, is part of a broader initiative launched in February with the European Union to "strengthen victim-centered transitional justice mechanisms in Liberia."
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The 23 participants were drawn from the Ministry of Justice, the Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission and the Independent National Commission on Human Rights, among others.
"We very much hope that this workshop and the conversations we will have during these two days will help us collectively bolster these efforts to ensure the promotion of a victims-centered judicial response for corruption-related offences in Liberia," said Marion Deniaud, a human rights officer with the U.N. human rights office, at the opening session.
The training comes as Liberia works to revive momentum toward accountability for past and present abuses. The proposed War and Economic Crimes Court would prosecute atrocities committed during the country's civil wars between 1989 and 2003, including murder, rape, forced recruitment of child soldiers and economic crimes such as resource pillage and embezzlement.
The planned Anti-Corruption Court would focus on corruption-related offenses from 1979 to the present, including fraud, economic sabotage, theft and money laundering. According to a roadmap developed by the Office of the War and Economic Crimes Court of Liberia, the body overseeing the establishment of the courts, the anti-corruption court is expected to begin operations within seven months.
While Liberia has conducted multiple trainings for prosecutors in recent years -- including programs supported by the United States government -- officials said the current initiative is the first to focus specifically on corruption from a human rights.
Experts said the timing is critical. Despite some progress, Liberia continues to struggle with entrenched corruption. Transparency International's latest index, released in February 2025, gave the country a score of 27 out of 100, signaling persistent challenges. A 2024 Afrobarometer survey found that while most Liberians still perceive public officials as corrupt, public confidence in the government's anti-corruption efforts is gradually improving, even as fear of reporting wrongdoing remains high.
Participants include prosecutors, investigators and senior civil society leaders.
U.N. officials said corruption should be understood not just as a financial misconduct but as a violation of basic rights -- depriving communities of essential services like health care, clean water, education and electricity.
"For investigators, prosecutors, and justice actors, your role is indispensable in resolving the long-standing complexities of this society and fostering a foundation free from the rot of corruption," said Pradeep Wagle, chief of the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights section of the U.N. human rights office. "At this crucial juncture in Liberia's history, we must look beyond, think proactively and join our hands together to combat corruption. This means placing victims at the center of our investigative strategies, strengthening the role of civil society, and ensuring that our fight is governed by the principles of transparency, accountability, and participation."
Zoltán Szalai, deputy ambassador of the European Union to Liberia, which is funding the training, echoed those concerns, linking corruption directly to human suffering.
"When public resources are diverted, this is the citizens are paying the price," he said.
"The highest price is paid by the most vulnerable one, because this kind of money is missing from public services, health, education and so on and so on."
Still, serious challenges remain. There is no comprehensive public data on how many corruption cases fail to reach trial in Liberia, but officials and civil society groups said many cases stall before indictments due to weak prosecutorial capacity and court constraints.
A recent investigation by FrontPage Africa/New Narratives uncovered one corruption scheme where victims of human trafficking said perpetrators told them they "owned the government" because they were paying a public defender named Bestman Juah, $500 a week to keep them out of jail. Their case has languished in the courts long enough for the perpetrators to now become eligible for bail.
Under Liberia's criminal procedure law, defendants are entitled to bail and may seek dismissal of charges if the state fails to prosecute within two court terms--a safeguard designed to prevent prolonged pretrial detention. Legal experts said persistent delays have made the provision increasingly consequential, with some cases collapsing and defendants being released when prosecutors fail to act in time.
These procedural safeguards, however, have also exposed deeper systemic challenges within the justice system.
Another major problem is the prolonged incarceration of those accused of crimes but awaiting trial. A 2025 Independent Country Programme Evaluation for Liberia by the United Nations Development Programme, which reviews justice sector challenges, including pretrial detention, said "since 2007, Liberia's prison population has nearly tripled, with severe overcrowding and 73 percent being pre-trial detainees."
A 2025 Independent Country Programme Evaluation for Liberia by the United Nations Development Programme found that "since 2007, Liberia's prison population has nearly tripled with severe overcrowding and 73 percent being pre-trial detainees."
In some cases, the accused perpetrators have been in jail awaiting trial for longer than the sentence that would have been given for the crime.
"So why should you draw indictments everyday, no trial?" asked Dempster Brown, chairman of the Independent National Commission on Human Rights, what is this??, prompting laughter from the audience apparently given that there have been no prosecutions despite the indictments. "You are wasting government's money... If you keep the person in jail or you indicting no trial, you are violating a person's right. The anti-corruption court must immediately be established so as to avoid prosecution's failure to proceed. Corruption is an enemy to the state."
Cora N. Konuwa, Liberia's deputy justice minister for administration, acknowledged the difficulties facing prosecutors.
"It's true that there are many indictments, but it's also true that the resources are limited to ensure that people are prosecuted," she said. "The resources are limited to ensure that magisterial courts and police have what is needed... We're going to try to invest our time and our everything to ensure that people are prosecuted because it is impunity that replicates corruption."
Budget constraints for prosecution by the Justice Ministry remain a central concern for experts. Although the ministry's allocation in the 2026 national budget for its overall operations has increased from $US54.6 million in 2025 to $64.1 million this year, only $2.4 million has been designated for prosecution, a modest increase from the previous year. The Ministry budget must also cover multiple security agencies under the ministry, including the police, immigration service, fire service, the Drug Enforcement and Witness Protection agencies.
Meanwhile, funding for the Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission rose to more than US$4.3 million, up from more than US$3.1 million the previous year. It remains unclear how much of that increase is specifically allocated to prosecutions, which experts say are a critical deterrent to corruption and a key measure of the government's commitment to tackling the problem.
Beyond funding, the country's Legislature poses another hurdle. Jallah Barbu, executive director of the Office of the War and Economic Crimes Court of Liberia, said in December that his office had submitted draft bills for the courts to Oswald Tweh, Liberia's Justice Minister and Bushuben Keita, President Joseph Boakai's legal adviser. President Boakai acknowledged their submission in his January address to the Legislature, but there has been no public discussion of the bills since.
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In total, all six draft bills--four related to the war and economic crimes court and two to a national anti-corruption court--must be debated and approved before the courts can be established-- a process some fear could be slowed by political resistance.
That concern is heightened by the presence of lawmakers who have faced allegations tied to the war, including Senator Thomas Nimely Yaya of Grand Gedeh County, who was accused in the 2009 Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report of war crimes, and Senator Edwin Snowe of Bomi County, who has faced allegations related to economic crimes.
The delay has advocates concerned.
"Suppose Boakai leaves tomorrow, the next man that will come, the whole thing will die down," said Brown. "These people that killed our brothers and sisters, they are in the Senate today, some of them in the House of Representatives. What do you expect? They will undermine the establishment of the war crime court, as well as the anti-corruption court, because most of them got rich from the war. Liberia is a country of law, not of man."
Despite the challenges, U.N. officials expressed cautious optimism, praising the government's stated commitment to accountability while urging sustained action. Christine N. Umutoni, the United Nations resident coordinator in Liberia, said it was important for corruption to be tackled to "heal the past, promote reconciliation and boost development."
"You cannot talk about transitional justice without tackling corruption issues and other issues like that," said Umutoni."The United Nations will continue to accompany the government of Liberia and key integrity actors in the promotion of victim-centered and anti-corruption efforts, including for the establishment of the judicial mechanisms for past and present abuses."
This story is a collaboration with New Narratives as part of the West Africa Justice Reporting Project. Funding was provided by the Swedish Embassy in Liberia which had no say in the story's content.
