The Challenge of Linking International Criminal Justice and National Reconciliation: the Case of the ICTR

Abstract

The quest of extending the role of tribunals beyond its traditional mission of justice to embrace the difficult need of reconciliation after mass atrocities has revealed itself to be challenging. This difficulty is most clearly illustrated in the case of the ICTR, whose mission is to bring about Rwandan reconciliation through justice. The implementation of this mission that was doubted by some members of the Security Council, including the Rwanda itself, at the time of setting up the ICTR is becoming a difficult experiment, with positive results but also with some negative outcomes capable even of undermining the aimed objective of national reconciliation. The problem of co-operation between the Tribunal and Rwanda, the difficulties of circumscribing individual responsibility without condemning the whole community, the problem of singling out and punishing some criminals and leaving the rest unpunished, the abuse of pardon and clemency, and finally the absence of the victim in a criminal process pretending to restore his situation are some of the difficult problems hampering the proclaimed mission of reconciliation assigned to the ICTR. This article is an attempt to analyse these problems and their impact on national reconciliation in Rwanda.