Mock Trials of Genocidaires – links & resources
I’ve put together
links to online material that can give you more insight into the effort to
prosecute and defend those accused of genocide, war crimes, and other
atrocities. Most of the links are about the international tribunal and the
prosecution of key people accused of organizing and leading the genocide. There
are bigger fish than we’re reading about in Hatzfeld’s
Machete Season but I think they can
be helpful nonetheless. I’ve grouped the
links as follows:
International Criminal Tribunal for
Rwanda –
the legal framework for the tribunal
Defending Genocidaires – genocide trials from the perspective of lawyers
for the defense
Prosecuting Genocidaires – genocide trials from the perspective of
prosecutors
By Tarik Kafala
BBC News
21 October 2009
The trial of
former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic at The Hague throws a renewed
spotlight on the prosecution of war crimes.
But what
exactly are war crimes? What body of laws do they refer to and who has the
right to try a suspect for such crimes?
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International Criminal Tribunal for
Rwanda (click on link to go to court website)
The International Criminal Tribunal for
Rwanda: bringing the killers to book
by Chris Maina Peter
31-12-1997
International Review of the Red Cross
The classification of war crimes, genocide,
and crimes against humanity
James Catano
03 Jul 2007
Article written in reference to the classification of
war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity, as well as the necessity of
such legal categorization and the limitations of domestic law related to such
egregious violations.
International
Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (Home page for the Tribunal)
Fact Sheet No. 1 |
Status of Cases
Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for
Rwanda
Statute of the
International Criminal Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for
Genocide and Other Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law
Committed in the Territory of Rwanda and Rwandan Citizens Responsible for
Genocide and Other Such Violations Committed in the Territory of Neighbouring States, between 1 January 1994 and 31 December
1994
Adopted by Security Council
resolution 955 (1994) of 8 November 1994
Amended by Security Council
resolutions 1165 (1998) of 30 April 1998 , 1329 (2000)
of 30 November 2000, 1411 (2002) of 17 May 2002 and 1431 (2002) of 14 August
2002
Having been established by
the Security Council acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United
Nations, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons
Responsible for Genocide and Other Serious Violations of International
Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of Rwanda and Rwandan citizens
responsible for genocide and other such violations committed in the territory
of neighbouring States, between 1 January 1994 and 31
December 1994 (hereinafter referred to as "the International Tribunal for
Rwanda") shall function in accordance with the provisions of the present
Statute.
Article 1
Competence of the
International Tribunal for Rwanda
The International Tribunal
for Rwanda shall have the power to prosecute persons responsible for serious
violations of international humanitarian law committed in the territory of
Rwanda and Rwandan citizens responsible for such violations committed in the
territory of neighbouring States, between 1 January
1994 and 31 December 1994, in accordance with the provisions of the present
Statute.
Article 2
Genocide
1. The International
Tribunal for Rwanda shall have the power to prosecute persons committing genocide
as defined in paragraph 2 of this article or of committing any of the other
acts enumerated in paragraph 3 of this article.
2. Genocide means any of
the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a
national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
( a ) Killing members of the group;
( b ) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of
the group;
( c ) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of
life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
( d ) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within
the group;
( e ) Forcibly transferring children of the group to
another group.
3. The following acts shall
be punishable:
( a ) Genocide;
( b ) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
( c ) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
( d ) Attempt to commit genocide;
( e ) Complicity in genocide.
Article 3
Crimes against humanity
The International Tribunal
for Rwanda shall have the power to prosecute persons responsible for the
following crimes when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack
against any civilian population on national, political, ethnic, racial or
religious grounds:
( a ) Murder;
( b ) Extermination;
( c ) Enslavement;
( d ) Deportation;
( e ) Imprisonment ;
( f ) Torture;
( g ) Rape;
( h ) Persecutions on political, racial and religious
grounds;
( i ) Other
inhumane acts.
Article 4
Violations of Article 3
common to the Geneva Conventions and
of Additional Protocol II
The International Tribunal
for Rwanda shall have the power to prosecute persons committing or ordering to
be committed serious violations of Article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions
of 12 August 1949 for the Protection of War Victims, and of Additional Protocol
II thereto of 8 June 1977. These violations shall include, but shall not be
limited to:
( a ) Violence to life, health and physical or mental
well-being of persons, in particular murder as well as cruel treatment such as
torture, mutilation or any form of corporal punishment;
( b ) Collective punishments;
( c ) Taking of hostages;
( d ) Acts of terrorism;
( e ) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular
humiliating and degrading treatment, rape, enforced prostitution and any form
of indecent assault;
( f ) Pillage;
( g ) The passing of sentences and the carrying out of
executions without previous judgement pronounced by a
regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are
recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples;
( h ) Threats to commit any of the foregoing acts.
Article 5
Personal jurisdiction
The International Tribunal
for Rwanda shall have jurisdiction over natural persons pursuant to the
provisions of the present Statute.
Article 6
Individual criminal
responsibility
1. A person who planned,
instigated, ordered, committed or otherwise aided and abetted in the planning,
preparation or execution of a crime referred to in articles 2 to 4 of the
present Statute, shall be individually responsible for the crime.
2. The official position of
any accused person, whether as Head of State or Government or as a responsible
Government official, shall not relieve such person of criminal responsibility
nor mitigate punishment.
3. The fact that any of the
acts referred to in articles 2 to 4 of the present Statute was committed by a
subordinate does not relieve his or her superior of criminal responsibility if
he or she knew or had reason to know that the subordinate was about to commit
such acts or had done so and the superior failed to take the necessary and
reasonable measures to prevent such acts or to punish the perpetrators thereof.
4. The fact that an accused
person acted pursuant to an order of a Government or of a superior shall not
relieve him or her of criminal responsibility, but may be considered in
mitigation of punishment if the International Tribunal for Rwanda determines
that justice so requires.
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A Legacy Deferred?: The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda at 20 Years
Nignel Eltringham, April 29, 2004
Defending a Person Charged with Genocide
by Anthony D' Amato
Chicago Journal of International Law 459-469 (2000)
In August 1997, I was asked to represent Dr. Milan Kovacevic, a Bosnian Serb anesthesiologist
who had been indicted by the International
Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia ("ICTY") for
complicity in genocide. Had he lived through it,
his trial would have been the first by the ICTY
for the crime of genocide. I would like to
describe some of the tribulations of defending clients
accused of grave humanitarian offenses in the
ICTY. Perhaps by relating stories of my
experiences there, some insights for reform can be
drawn.
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RWANDA
10 YEARS AFTER THE GENOCIDE: CREATING CONDITIONS FOR JUSTICE AND RECONCILIATION
PROSECUTORS’
COLLOQUIUM - 25 -27 November 2004
Martin NGOGA
Deputy Prosecutor
General of Rwanda
For decades that before 1994, our country had known
only regimes that had built their power on
the massive violation of human rights,
discrimination and divisions of the people of Rwanda. I
have been asked to discuss a topic entitled “
Rwanda 10 years after the genocide: creating
conditions for justice and reconciliation”. I will
give a brief background of the subject matter,
prior to 1994 so that we may get a basic
understanding of what I will be talking about today.
As you may know, a post genocide Rwanda had difficult
questions to answer and difficult choices
to make in order to restore order.
Prosecuting
Genocide in Rwanda: The Gacaca system and the
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
The Norwegian Helsinki Committee | Report II/2002
Although Rwanda is outside of the geographical scope of
the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, the organization decided to send a
fact-finding mission to study the efforts of the government of
Rwanda to promote reconciliation after the 1994
genocide. A second aim of the mission was to evaluate the
functioning of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), which was
established by
the UN Security Council in 1994.
The Prosecution of the Crime of Genocide in
the ICTY: The Case of Radislav Krstic
by Fran Pilch
USAFA Journal of Legal Studies, Spring 2003
Srebrenica, a small town in the northeastern corner of
Bosnia-Herzegovina, represents to many the turning point in the war in
Bosnia. Declared a “safe haven” by a
United Nations Security Council Resolution in 1993, Srebrenica became a focal
point of controversy and collective guilt when it was overrun by the Serb Army
in July 1995, an event which ultimately led to the massacre of thousands of
Muslim men and boys during nine days of horror after its occupation by the
Serbs. It is widely acknowledged that
United Nations policies on the ground during the Bosnian conflict represented
moral and strategic failure on the part of the international community; the
battleground after the Dayton Accords of 1995 shifted to the courtroom. On August 2, 2001, Trial Chamber 1 of the
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) rendered its judgement in Prosecutor v. Radislav
Krstic. The Trial Chamber found Krstic
guilty of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. This was the first conviction of the crime of
genocide rendered by the ICTY, and Krstic is the highest-ranking person to be
charged and convicted to date for events surrounding the fall of Srebrenica.
His conviction for genocide is therefore a landmark in international
humanitarian and human rights law, and has already had great implications for
subsequent ICTY proceedings, notably the case against Slobodan Milosevic. The fall of Srebrenica and its aftermath, the
case against Krstic, and the implications of this case for the future of international
humanitarian law are the subjects of this paper.
Rwanda: The Two Faces of Justice
By Samantha Power
The New York Review of Books
Volume 50, Number 1 · January 16, 2003