A Steady Race towards Better Compliance with International Humanitarian Law? The ICTR 1995–2012

Abstract

This article reviews the legacy of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) under a specific compliance perspective and asks whether the Tribunal’s jurisprudence furthered the adherence to norms of international criminal and humanitarian law. The Tribunal’s impact on the circulation, emergence and enforcement, of the prohibitions of genocide and other serious violations of international humanitarian law will thus be scrutinised. Furthermore, the legitimacy of the ICTR’s jurisprudence plays a major role as human beings not only follow a logic of consequence but also a logic of appropriateness. This combined approach will show that the ICTR – despite its shortcomings – has furthered compliance by diffusing the norms of international criminal and humanitarian law not only to Rwanda and the Great Lakes Region, but also to the international community.