The ICTR Ten Years On: Back to the Nuremberg Paradigm?

Abstract

Since his appointment in 2003, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) remains silent on the issue of prosecuting officials of the victorious Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). There is certainly no lack of credible reports about massive violations of human rights and international humanitarian law by the RPF both in Rwanda and in neighbouring countries, in 1994 and thereafter. The Prosecutor and the UN Security Council, despite lip service to the contrary, seem less than eager to confront the government in Kigali. It is therefore to be feared that prosecutorial practice at the ICTR will follow the Nuremberg paradigm. This one-sided policy may, however, have far-reaching consequences.