Justice for Genocide? A Retrospective on the Work of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda / : Quelle justice après le génocide? : rétrospective sur le travail du Tribunal pénal international pour le Rwanda

In response to a request from the new Government of Rwanda, the ICTR was created by the UN Security Council on 8 November 1994, through resolution 955, co-sponsored by Argentina, France, New Zealand, the Russian Federation, Spain, the U. K. and the U. S.10 The Government of Rwanda provided the following reasons for its request: First, by asking for the establishment of such a tribunal, the Rwandes [...] Nevertheless, Rwanda ultimately voted against resolution 955, citing, among other reasons: • the inadequate temporal jurisdiction of the tribunal (covering only events within the period 1 January–31 December 1994), which did not permit examination of previous massacres and planning of the genocide; • the lack of any clear priority in the Statute for the prosecution of charges of genocide, and the [...] In order for an accused to be found responsible for a specific violation of article 4, the following elements must be proven: • the existence of a non-international armed conflict; • the existence of a link between the alleged violation and the armed conflict; and • the fact that the victims did not directly take part in the hostilities at the time of the alleged violation.34 3.2 TEMPORAL JURISDIC [...] Of the nine guilty pleas, the first two were entered in late 1998 by Jean Kambanda, the Prime Minister of Rwanda during the genocide, and by Omar Serushago, leader of the Interhamwe militia responsible for the killings of Tutsis in Gisenyi prefecture.38 In both cases, the accused pleaded guilty to several counts of the crime of genocide and crimes against humanity. [...] For others, the tribunal is seen as merely a forum for victors’ justice – a perception based primarily on the failure of the ICTR to try any members of the RPF and on the underlying idea that justice for the victims of the Rwandan genocide is somehow incomplete or not impartial.50 An additional perceived failure of the ICTR concerns the relocation of some of the individuals who were acquitted or w