Journal of International Criminal Justice Advance Access originally published online on August 12, 2005
Journal of International Criminal Justice 2005 3(4):950-961; doi:10.1093/jicj/mqi072
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III. Appraising the Role of the ICTR |
Courting Rwanda
The Promises and Pitfalls of the ICTR Outreach Programme
* Ph.D., Assistant Professor, The School of Global Studies, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA. [Victor.Peskin{at}asu.edu]
This article aims to assess the contribution of the Outreach Programme at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). The author introduces and discusses two general approaches or models of outreach that international criminal tribunals may pursue. The transparency model of outreach seeks to make a tribunal's opaque legal process more visible by disseminating basic information about the court to communities recovering from human rights abuses. The engagement model goes beyond only informing these communities by facilitating frequent and extensive tribunal interaction and dialogue through seminars, town hall presentations, and training of legal professionals. Despite some progress with limited resources, the efforts of the Outreach Programme of the ICTR to engage the Rwandan population and to make the Tribunal more transparent have been ineffective. The article recommends that the ICTR bolster its outreach efforts by helping to train Rwanda's judiciary, appointing more Rwandans to serve in positions of authority at the Tribunal, and engaging domestic and international non-governmental organizations in outreach programme partnerships.
1 See SC Res. 955, 8 November 1994.
2 Personal interviews conducted with ICTR officials and diplomats in Kigali, Rwanda, June–July 2002 and with Carla Del Ponte in The Hague, The Netherlands, December 2003.
3 See brief description of the ICTR Outreach Programme posted on the Tribunal's website as part of a 10th anniversary commemoration of the Rwandan genocide, available online at: http://www.ictr.org/commemoration/faq/faq-4.asp (visited 2 July 2005).
5 ‘The outreach programme was well received, still is well received [and] has made an impact,’ ICTR Spokesperson Kingsley Moghalu asserted in a 2002 interview (personal interview with the ICTR Spokesperson Kingsley Moghalu conducted in Arusha, Tanzania, February 2002). In June 2001, ICTR Registrar, Adama Dieng, asserted that the outreach programme, in conjunction with the Tribunal's increased efficacy and efforts to aid witnesses and victims, had significantly reversed Rwandan public opinion that the Tribunal was ‘distant and inaccessible’ (statement by the Registrar, Mr Adama Dieng, on the Report of the International Crisis Group, ICTR Press Release, 11 June 2001). ‘A vast majority of Rwandans has shown a marked increase in their appreciation of the work of the ICTR and their support for it,’ Dieng claimed, yet without supporting evidence, ibid.
6 See Ralph Zacklin's comments about the ICTY's outreach efforts in R. Zacklin, ‘The Failings of Ad Hoc International Tribunals’, 2 Journal of International Criminal Justice (2004) 541–545, at 544.
7 Personal interviews conducted with Special Court officials in Freetown, Sierra Leone, March 2005. For a brief discussion of outreach efforts undertaken by and on behalf of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, see No Peace Without Justice, ‘Outreach and the International Criminal Court’, NPWJ International Criminal Justice Policy Series No. 2, Preliminary Edition for distribution during the Third Session of the ICC Assembly of States Parties, The Hague, September 2004.
8 David Tolbert makes a similar point in reference to the outreach programme at the ICTY. See D. Tolbert, ‘Reflections on the ICTY Registry’, 2 Journal of International Criminal Justice (2004) 485.
9 ICTY officials explicitly presented their outreach programme as a bulwark to protect the Tribunal against damaging government disinformation that undermined domestic support for the court. ‘We will work on countering the misinformation about the Tribunal with information about the Tribunal,’ said ICTY President Gabrielle Kirk McDonald when she announced the creation of the outreach programme in March 1999; see ICTY Press Release, 16 March 1999.
10 For more information about the origins of the ICTY outreach programme, see L. Vohrah and J. Cina, ‘The Outreach Programme’, in R. May et al., Essays on ICTY Procedure and Evidence in Honour of Gabrielle Kirk McDonald (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 2001), 547–557.
11 It is important to acknowledge the efforts made by individual Tribunal employees, independent of the outreach programme, to engage directly with Rwandans and keep them abreast of developments at the court. One notable example occurred in the aftermath of the Tribunal's first conviction, of Taba mayor Jean-Paul Akayesu. The lead ICTR Prosecutor in the Akayesu case, Pierre-Richard Prosper, travelled to Taba to tell residents there about the decision.
12 See E. Stover and H. Weinstein, ‘Conclusion: A Common Objective, a Universe of Alternatives’, in E. Stover and H. Weinstein (eds), My Neighbor, My Enemy: Justice and Community in the Aftermath of Mass Atrocity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004) 323–342, at 334.
13 The causes of the interruption in the internship programme are complex, but were reportedly sparked in part by Tribunal concerns about allowing Rwandan interns access to sensitive Tribunal documents.
14 Personal interview conducted with Jean-Marie Kamatali in Kigali, Rwanda, April 2002 and telephone interview conducted with Kamatali, October 2004.
15 See ICTR Press Release, ‘ICTR Information Centre Opens in Kigali’, 25 September 2000.
16 See ‘The ICTR Outreach Programme’, ICTR information sheet, 7 February 2002.
17 See A. Des Forges and T. Longman, ‘Legal Responses to the Genocide in Rwanda’, in Stover and Weinstein, supra note 12, 49–68, at 56.
18 See ICTR Press Briefing, 17 February 2000.
19 Telephone interview conducted with Jean-Marie Kamatali, October 2004.
20 See ‘International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda: Delayed Justice’, International Crisis Group Africa Report Number 30, 7 June 2001, at 25.
21 In late February 2005, ICTR Chief Prosecutor, Hassan Jallow, sent 15 Tribunal case files to Rwandan officials. The transferred case files are of Hutu genocide suspects who have not yet been indicted by the Tribunal. See ‘UN Court Hands Over Genocide Cases to Rwanda’, Hirondelle News Agency, 23 February 2005.
22 Personal interview conducted with Gerald Gahima in Kigali, Rwanda, June 2000.
23 Personal interview conducted with Tribunal official in Kigali, Rwanda, June 2002.
24 For a discussion of this issue, see V. Peskin, ‘Rwandan Ghosts’, Legal Affairs (September/October 2002) 21–25.
25 Personal interview conducted with Tribunal official in Kigali, Rwanda, June 2002.
26 See ‘First Rwandan Attorney Takes the Floor at the ICTR’, Hirondelle News Agency, 15 February 2005.
27 Telephone interview conducted with Aloys Habimana, October 2004.