Zero-Sum Failure: The Intersection of Sexual Violence & Child-Soldier Culpability in Ongwen

In the recent article “Zero-Sum Failure: The Intersection of Sexual Violence & Child-Soldier Culpability in Ongwen” (Harvard International Law Journal, April 2025), Zej Moczydłowski (WashU Law J.D. ’25, NYU Law LL.M ’26 candidate) confronts the hard questions raised by Dominic Ongwen’s dual status as both a victim and a perpetrator under international law.

The piece examines how Ongwen’s abduction as a child by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), and his later leadership role and commission of grave sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), expose weaknesses in how international criminal law treats defendants with victim-perpetrator backgrounds. Moczydłowski argues that the trial largely ignored Ongwen’s traumatic childhood (abduction, indoctrination, coercion) when assessing culpability — especially in the context of defenses under Article 31(a) (mental disease or defect) and related doctrines.

He details Ongwen’s prosecution for 70 counts, including sexual violence crimes, and critiques the Defense’s unsuccessful attempt to invoke Article 31(a) defenses based on his child-soldier past. His article argues that the Court’s “zero-sum” framing—treating Ongwen as either victim or perpetrator—fails to capture the complexity of his situation. Moczydłowski suggests that the current framework (at least as applied in Ongwen) forces an unfair choice: treat him like a child-victim (and risk under-punishment) or as a full adult perpetrator (and risk ignoring what made him what he became).

He argues for a reexamination of how “justice” is done when the lines between victim and perpetrator blur. As a corrective, it proposes separating charges so that victimhood considerations are weighed differently for sexual violence crimes versus broader conflict-related offenses.

Read more at the Harvard International Law Journal.