LRA

LRA, short for Lord's Resistance Army, is in international law the designation for a Ugandan armed rebel group that operates outside the framework of the state and is classified as a non-state armed actor under international humanitarian law. The group emerged in northern Uganda and has since its formation committed documented abuses against the civilian population in Uganda and adjoining parts of Central Africa. Joseph Kony is the group's supreme leader and has led the LRA since the 1980s with extreme violence as a central instrument of control.

Under Kony's leadership, the LRA has systematically abducted children and forced them into the group's ranks — boys as child soldiers and girls as sex slaves or forced wives. Under international law, these acts constitute grave violations of the Geneva Conventions and of the provisions on war crimes in the Rome Statute. The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants against Joseph Kony and several other LRA leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The charges include murder, torture, sexual slavery and the use of children under 15 in hostilities — all punishable under articles 7 and 8 of the Rome Statute. These arrest warrants are among the first and best known the ICC has issued against leaders of a non-state armed group.

The LRA's activities have over decades resulted in tens of thousands of deaths, the displacement of millions of civilians and the abduction of an estimated 60,000 to 100,000 children and young people according to the figures of humanitarian organisations. The group has expanded its area of operations from Uganda to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic and South Sudan, giving its crimes a pronounced cross-border character and thereby making international prosecution particularly relevant.

As of 2025, Joseph Kony remains at large, and the ICC's arrest warrant against him is unexecuted. The LRA is today regarded as significantly weakened compared with its peak, but the group still exists as an active, though reduced, armed actor in the region.