The Rwanda Tribunal and Genocide

Abstract

The protection that the Genocide Convention was meant to provide failed to see the light of day when genocide engulfed Rwanda in 1994. Though much has been written about the inability to prevent the massacres, it is clear that the expeditious creation of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) once it had been recognised that genocide had occurred, was vital to ensure that the Genocide Convention did not end up being another instrument, the bark of which was greater than its bite. Presiding Trial Chamber I in many of the early cases before the Rwanda Tribunal, Judge Kama's personal contribution was instrumental in the development of the ICTR's jurisprudence, setting ground breaking precedents with the first findings of genocide by an international jurisdiction, and bringing to light the events which unfolded in Rwanda in 1994. Keywords: International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda(ICTR); Judge Kama; Rwanda Tribunal; United Nations Genocide Convention