A/HRC/40/CRP.1 32 states and has as such been a trigger for serious human rights violations. In practice, the way this issue has been dealt with has exacerbated historical divisions and mistrust between ethnic and political factions, particularly as the decision-making process has appeared to lack legitimacy and transparency. The contention over administrative divisions is not merely about the number of states or their boundaries, but also importantly the division or sharing of powers between the different levels of government and whether the system ought to be a federal one, a decentralised one, or indeed a centralised one. While the questions of territorial divisions and division of powers are in many ways separate, they are inherently linked as both engage the question of regional representation. The number and make-up of states necessarily feeds into discussion of what division and allocation of powers is both feasible and desirable. As South Sudan works to implement the new peace agreement, the question of the administrative boundaries will continue to be one of the most delicate issues which could derail the peace process setting off new cycles of violence. Further, if these governance questions are not resolved in inclusive and representative ways, they risk creating and entrenching systems which exclude or deprive groups of citizens of their equal voice in their government. 2. Background to the Current Debate The genesis of these issues predates the Sudanese independence of 1 January 1956. Even before this date, southern disaffection with the direction of political events, especially following the 1954 elections, sparked the 1955 mutiny of Southern soldiers, which morphed into the first civil war after independence. 862 Southern support for Sudanese selfdetermination has always been conditioned on a federal system within an independent Sudan, with autonomy for the South. When the government in Khartoum reneged on its promise of federalism after independence, it sparked the first civil war. Over the ensuing decades, the twin questions of federalism (the relationship with Khartoum) and decentralisation (subdivision of the South) remained contentious and fuelled the Sudanese civil war.863 As the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement focussed on the relationship between Sudan and Southern Sudan, it did not engage with the issue of internal Southern Sudanese administrative boundaries. As a result, at independence, the Transitional Constitution (2011) adopted a 10 state structure,864 keeping the same divisions which had been adopted in Sudan in 1992 of 26 states, 10 of which were in the south. 865 The Transitional Constitution (2011) provided for a decentralized form of government which allocated certain responsibilities to each of the three levels of government. While it states that the National Government would “respect the powers devolved to the states and local governments”,866 the Transitional Constitution (2011) did not establish a federal system with exclusive areas of responsibility. In practice, the government of South Sudan has been highly centralised. Over the course of the long history of the political discussion over how regional governance should be arranged, the division of boundaries and the concept of federalism has often been framed in historical narratives of exclusion and inclusion. 867 Popular views on what federalism entails are quite mixed. In a recent survey undertaken by the South Sudan Civil Society Forum, when respondents were asked what they thought were the essential components of a federal system, respondents cited a range of issues including: devolution of resources (64 percent); people must live in their home areas (54 percent); devolution of power (47 percent); public sector employees must work in their home areas (35 percent); restrictions on executive power (32 percent) and breaking larger states into smaller states (13 percent).868 This indicates that although 62 percent indicated they supported a federal Gola Rajiv, “Reassessing Ethno-Political Calculus in South Sudan’s War”, December 2017. For a detailed discussion see: Douglas H. Johnson, “Federalism in the history of South Sudanese political thought”, Rift Valley Institute Research Paper 1, 2014; Rens Willems & David Deng, “The legacy of Kokora in South Sudan”, November 2015. 864 Transitional Constitution (2011), Article 161. 865 Peter Hakim Justin and Lotje De Vries, “Governing Unclear Lines: Local Boundaries as a (Re)source of Conflict in South Sudan”, Journal of Borderlands Studies, March 2017. 866 Transitional Constitution (2011), Articles 48, 49. 867 African Union, Final Report of the African Union Commission of Inquiry on South Sudan, 15 October 2015, para. 144. 868 South Sudan Civil Society Forum, “Revitalizing Peace in South Sudan: Citizen Perceptions of the Peace Process”, November 2018. 862 863 114