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The Gacaca Courts, Post-Genocide Justice and Reconciliation in Rwanda: Justice without Lawyers

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Abstract

This is a timely empirical study and review of the Gacaca Courts which were established in 2001 in Rwanda as an attempt to prosecute suspects involved in the 1994 genocide. Based on the author's original field work which began in 2003 in Rwanda and which has been updated to the end of 2009, it includes responses from within the Rwandan population. Dr. Clark argues that, despite widespread international scepticism, the Gacaca process has achieved remarkable results in terms of justice and reconciliation, although this has often come at a price, especially the re-traumatisation of many Rwandans who have participated firsthand in hearings. This book will appeal to a wide global readership crossing human rights, transitional justice and African studies for its combination of original empirical data with a socio-legal analysis.

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... This approach can include community service, dialogue sessions, and other forms of engagement that aim to rebuild trust and foster reconciliation. For example, the Gacaca Courts in Rwanda combined elements of both justice and reconciliation by allowing communities to participate in the trial and sentencing of genocide perpetrators, promoting a sense of local ownership in the justice process (Clark, 2010). ...
... This approach is particularly effective in post-conflict societies, where rebuilding trust and social cohesion is essential for longterm peace. In Rwanda, the Gacaca Courts, a form of community-based justice, combined elements of restorative justice with traditional legal processes to promote reconciliation between perpetrators of the genocide and their communities (Clark, 2010). While reparations and restorative justice are vital for reconciliation, their success depends on their ability to address the needs of victims and foster genuine healing. ...
... This can involve changes in legislation, the creation of oversight bodies, and the implementation of education programmes that promote human rights and democratic values. For example, in Post-Genocide Rwanda, the government implemented extensive legal and institutional reforms to prevent future violence, including the establishment of a National Unity and Reconciliation Commission (Clark, 2010). While Institutional Reforms are crucial for preventing the recurrence of conflict, they often face significant challenges, including resistance from entrenched elites, resource constraints, and the difficulty of implementing reforms in fragile states. ...
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Human society is inherently linked to conflict, which inevitably affects both people and their environment. To prevent the negative outcomes of conflict, there is an urgent need for peace that creates a stable environment, one that not only enables development but ensures its sustained progress in alignment with the principles of Sustainable Development. Peace and Conflict Studies provides a framework for understanding this unavoidable aspect of human nature. As an interdisciplinary field, it integrates insights from various disciplines that examine human interactions. No meaningful development can occur in an environment plagued by conflict, instability, and the resulting losses in human lives and material resources. This makes the study of Peace and Conflict Management essential as an independent discipline with connections to other fields of study. The destructive impact of the First and Second World Wars further justified the need for specialized skills to reduce the frequency and intensity of conflicts, as it is impossible to eliminate conflict entirely. Human nature and societal structures inevitably lead to conflicts, often due to competing goals. When goals are incompatible, conflict arises, highlighting the need for specialized skills in conflict analysis. Conflict analysis involves a detailed evaluation of various elements, such as the historical background, context, antecedents, external factors, triggers, causes, drivers, and the parties involved. Understanding these dynamics is the first step in resolving conflicts. Therefore, professionals trained in conflict resolution with the necessary skills play a critical role in managing conflicts, ensuring that they do not escalate and that the de-escalation process is handled effectively. This underlines the importance of Peace and Conflict Studies as a discipline that should be taught in universities and practiced in society. Conflicts arise in families, groups, larger societies, among nations—both bilaterally and multilaterally—and even within and between international organizations. This requires a collective approach to not only develop but also promote this discipline to a level where conflicts can be managed and reduced through proactive efforts. Addressing potential and actual conflict flashpoints with prudence is key to preventing escalation. The motivation for writing this book is to contribute to the collective efforts of peace and conflict resolution practitioners in addressing the global challenges of peacebuilding and conflict de-escalation. A key issue addressed in this book is structural conflict, which impacts individuals‘ psychology and emotions through political, economic, social, and cultural marginalization, denial, and injustice. These issues leave deep scars on humanity. This book aims to bring some relief to marginalized individuals and groups by focusing on these challenges.
... In unconventional approaches devised by some transitioning societies, like Rwanda's Gacaca, it is not just an issue that a prosecutor uses them as witnesses. This becomes a community-wide inquiry where everyone is involved (Branch 2004, 25;Clark 2010 and. There is a facilitator, and the survivors can participate by asking questions accounting for what happened to them in a manner that is outside the adversarial judicial system where the prosecutor is in charge. ...
... They critically assess justice from a universal lens, criticize TWAIL approaches in light of 'international standards', for instance the duty to investigate and prosecute, procedural fairness, proportionate sentencing or accepted as 'necessary evil' (Clark 2010;Freeman 2009). The ICC is, therefore, still vulnerable to some of the dilemmas that other liberal and emancipatory projects face in their engagement with 'the local', such as paternalistic and missionary features, perpetuation of structural inequalities or distorting effects of de-localization (Anghie and Chimni 2003;Nielsen 2008). ...
... Commission, and Rwanda's Gacaca courts. All these approaches were rooted in society's diverse concepts of justice and guided by the justice outcomes they sought to achieve based on their intricate contexts (Clark 2010;Schabas 2005, 883;Minow 2007, 329;Mamdani 2015, 72). ...
... In one way, therefore, gacaca can be viewed as a pragmatic solution to a practical problem: speeding up the prosecutions and sentencing of those suspected of acts of genocide. However, many writers on gacaca will argue that its aims were much broader (see Gahima 2013;Clark 2010;Waldorf 2010;Karekezi et. al. 2004). ...
... As already mentioned, gacaca was intended to try lower level suspects of the genocide, and cases of sexual torture and rape had initially been reserved for the national courts. However, in 2008, gacaca began trials against higher-level suspects charged with having led the genocide at a local level and sexual violence cases (Waldorf 2010;Clark 2010). ...
... These initiatives represent a comprehensive approach to addressing both immediate safety concerns and long-term societal cohesion. The Gacaca courts, community-based tribunals designed to expedite the trial of genocide suspects, balanced justice with reconciliation by involving local communities directly in the judicial process (Clark, 2010). Building on this foundation, the Abunzi mediation committees further refined Rwanda's approach to community-level justice by blending traditional dispute resolution methods with formal legal processes (Mutisi, 2012). ...
... These community-based courts aimed to expedite the trial of genocide suspects while promoting healing and unity. The Gacaca system addressed both immediate safety concerns and long-term societal cohesion by involving local communities in the justice process (Clark, 2010). Complementing this, Rwanda undertook significant judiciary reforms. ...
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This study examines the application of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs to public policy formulation and implementation in African nations, with a focus on Rwanda, South Africa, and Kenya. It analyzes how these countries have aligned their policies with different levels of Maslow's hierarchy, from addressing basic physiological needs to fostering self-actualization and societal progress. The research explores Rwanda's comprehensive post-genocide policy framework, South Africa's efforts to address apartheid legacies, and Kenya's struggle to balance economic growth with basic needs fulfillment. Through these case studies, the study demonstrates the value of applying Maslow's theory to guide policymakers in prioritizing and addressing diverse societal needs while pursuing broader development goals. The analysis reveals both successes and persistent challenges in areas such as social cohesion, economic inequality, and rapid urbanization. The study concludes by offering recommendations for a more holistic, context-specific, and sustainable approach to need-based policy formulation in African countries, emphasizing the importance of inclusive governance, long-term vision, and regional cooperation.
... The government of Rwanda has initiated various programs to unite Rwandans after the genocide, among them the Gacaca Court. It was introduced to combine legal and psychosocial objectives through truthtelling, peace, justice, healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation and was found to be very appealing (Clark, 2010). Reconciliation was defined as a technique that goes beyond settling a conflict's material stakes to restoring social relations and healing hearts and minds (Lerche, 2000). ...
... The fear was that if I said that I did this and that, my children, my relatives, and my friends would feel scandalized. The other cause of not telling the truth was that in the Gacaca proceedings, forgiveness was often performed through public confessions that involved the accused and the public prosecutor representing the state rather than the opposing parties in the conflict (Clark, 2010). ...
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Reconciliation has become a high-level concern for countries emerging from intrastate armed conflict as well as for international development assistance in post-conflict societies. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of reconciliation on psychosocial well-being of the Mushaka people after genocide against Tutsi. The study was guided by the truth theory. The study used qualitative approach and a Phenomenology design to show how reconciliation was used to deal with psychosocial problems after genocide in Mushaka parish. The objectives of this study were: to examine the experiences that Mushaka people had gone through before the project of reconciliation; to determine the challenges encountered during reconciliation among the Christians in Mushaka Parish; to explore strategies that they used to promote reconciliation and the state of psychosocial well-being; and to expand the role of counseling for effective reconciliation and to promote healing through reconciliation. Qualitative tools have been used to gather information from both genocide perpetrators and survivors. A Stratified random sampling technique was used to select 5 survivors: 5 perpetrators and 4 priests from the target population of 480 participants from Mushaka parish. Data were collected using focus group discussion, interviews with both groups of survivors and perpetrators, and an interview guide for Priests. Using thematic analysis, the researcher analyzed the findings. The findings showed that there was poor reconciliation among survivors and perpetrators in Mushaka parish before Mushaka Reconciliation project. The reconciliation process was challenged by a lack of telling truth to both sides, a lack of the trained mediators or counselors, fear, and mistrust. The suspension over the sacraments in order to promote Gacaga Nkirisitu was one of strategies used to reconcile the Mushaka people. The other strategy was to gather both survivors and perpetrators to discuss their differences, charity works, and solidarity funds. The true reconciliation needed the counseling sessions in order to help people open up and be effective. This study recommends the collaboration of all institutions and the recognition of the role of psycho-spiritual counseling in promoting reconciliation.
... The Gacaca courts of Rwanda, established in 2001, were a community-based judicial system designed to address the overwhelming backlog of genocide cases following the 1994 Rwandan genocide, during which approximately 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed (Clark, 2010). The term "Gacaca," meaning "justice on the grass" in Kinyarwanda, reflects the courts' outdoor settings where community members gathered to witness trials and participate in the justice process. ...
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The pursuit of sustainable peace and development in Africa faces numerous challenges, including persistent conflicts, economic instability, and social fragmentation even though sustainable peace is a panacea for growth and advancement. This paper explores the transformative potential of Igwebuike, an indigenous Igbo-African philosophy, as a framework for addressing these challenges. Igwebuike, meaning "there is strength in unity," emphasizes communal harmony, collective strength, and mutual support. By analyzing its philosophical foundations and practical applications, this study illustrates how Igwebuike can enhance conflict resolution, promote inclusive development, and strengthen social cohesion. Case studies from different African contexts were employed to demonstrate the successful integration of Igwebuike principles in fostering community-driven initiatives and sustainable resource management. Despite modern challenges such as increasing individualism and cultural shifts, Igwebuike offers a culturally resonant approach to peace-building and development. This paper argues that embracing Igwebuike can provide African nations with innovative and effective strategies for achieving long-term stability and prosperity for all. The descriptive and analytic methods were utilized to sustain this research; recommendations were made and the researcher held by way of conclusion that the principles of Igwebuike can enhance conflict resolution, promote sustainable development, and strengthen social welfare systems, paving the way for a more harmonious and prosperous future for the continent.
... Key policies included the decentralization of governance and the promotion of good governance practices to foster transparency and accountability (Ansoms & Rostagno, 2020). Efforts to rebuild the state were complemented by justice initiatives like the Gacaca courts, aimed at addressing the genocide's aftermath while promoting reconciliation (Clark, 2010). ...
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This research paper explores the initiatives undertaken in Rwanda to increase women's participation in the tech industry thirty years after the Tutsi genocide. The paper examines the impact of these initiatives on social and economic development in Rwanda, highlighting the progress made and the challenges that remain. Rwandan women have achieved significant milestones across various sectors, including politics, entrepreneurship, education, peacebuilding, and professions traditionally dominated by men.
... The ample use of legal and political terms demonstrates an emphasis on the necessity of an international mechanism to address atrocities. While assessment of the ICTR activities and the rationale behind its establishment by the UN Security Council is beyond the scope of this research, it is worth noting that vast literature exists on Rwanda's grassroots initiatives, i.e. tradition-based mechanisms and reconciliation procedures (Clark 2010;Ingelaere 2016). These show that the Western idea of retributive justice might not always be easily transplanted to other societies. ...
Article
https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/JNPMMWIXCXBIWKPEZH5Q/full?target=10.1080/21681392.2024.2339246 By critically examining atrocity reports as a ‘genocide genre’, the authors seek to demonstrate how the combination of political, legal, historical, and other narratives enables these reports to become an important advocacy tool for international human rights organisations. Employing critical discourse analysis, and qualitative and quantitative content-analysis, the article proceeds with the examination of atrocity reports on Rwandan genocide, in order to uncover the representation of such categories as victim/perpetrator/international community, as well as ‘the colonial question’. We also look into the topics not properly explored by the reports’ authors, namely, social and economic inequalities that enable genocide. Contrary to the assumption that NGO reports are objective, politically impartial, and emotionally neutral, our conclusions point to the strategies of politicisation, sensationalism, and emotivity to manipulate a broad (international) audience. By drawing these conclusions, we seek to contribute to the emerging field of critical research that re-examines the role of ‘international norm entrepreneurs’ in African conflicts, and in world politics more generally.
... In sub-Saharan Africa, countries like Rwanda have implemented innovative conflict resolution and reconciliation programs in the aftermath of genocide. The Gacaca courts, for example, provided a community-based approach to justice and reconciliation, allowing survivors and perpetrators to come together to address past atrocities and seek forgiveness (Clark, 2010). Moreover, Rwanda's focus on socio-economic development and inclusive governance has contributed to stability and reduced the likelihood of renewed violence (Reyntjens, 2014). ...
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Purpose: To aim of the study was to analyze role of emotional intelligence in conflict resolution and prevention in Colombia. Methodology: This study adopted a desk methodology. A desk study research design is commonly known as secondary data collection. This is basically collecting data from existing resources preferably because of its low cost advantage as compared to a field research. Our current study looked into already published studies and reports as the data was easily accessed through online journals and libraries. Findings: Research shows power dynamics and organizational justice significantly impact conflict outcomes and satisfaction. Power imbalances exacerbate conflicts, leading to dissatisfaction. Unequal power distribution can escalate conflicts due to perceived unfairness. Conversely, organizational justice fosters positive outcomes and higher satisfaction levels. Fostering equitable power dynamics and promoting justice mitigate conflict and enhance satisfaction. Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: Social cognitive theory, emotional labor theory & affective events theory may be used to anchor future studies on the role of emotional intelligence in conflict resolution and prevention in Colombia. Organizations should implement targeted emotional intelligence training programs aimed at enhancing employees' conflict resolution skills. Policy-makers should advocate for the inclusion of emotional intelligence competencies in leadership development programs and training initiatives.
... • Rwanda: Following the genocide, the Gacaca court system was established, blending traditional conflict resolution mechanisms with formal justice. While it expedited numerous cases, critics argue it lacked legal standards and impartiality (Clark, 2008). ...
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The research study provides an in-depth analysis of South Africa's political landscape from 2024 to 2029, focusing on the "soft transition" phase. It discusses the historical dominance of the ANC, its challenges, and the evolving political dynamics influenced by a younger, urbanized, and digitally connected population. The report outlines the potential for gradual realignment of power and the necessity for nuanced leadership to navigate the socio-political, economic, and cultural changes anticipated during this period. It emphasizes the importance of collaboration, inclusivity, and strategic planning in fostering a stable and prosperous future for South Africa, urging stakeholders to prepare for both immediate and long-term transformations.
... The Ubuntu philosophy, for instance, emphasizes integrity and trustworthiness, fostering a sense of communal responsibility (Mbiti, 1990). At the national levels, traditional systems like Rwanda's Gacaca courts prioritize truth-telling for healing and reconciliation (Clark, 2010). Overall, truthfulness and honesty are deeply rooted in African cultures and play a pivotal role in facilitating social cohesion and progress. ...
... These were devised to assert local ownership over TJ processes beyond-but in complementarity with-the ICTR. Yet, while scholars have argued that Gacaca courts enshrined a number of values in addition to justice, such as peace, truth, reconciliation, healing, and forgiveness ( Clark 2010 ), as a proscribed behavior, Gacaca courts first and foremost enshrined the value of anti-impunity. When the Rwandan government called an international conference to advise on its TJ strategy in 1995, complementary paths to "full doc-umentation of the Rwandan genocide," such as a TRC or a documentation center, were advocated for by experts ( Office of the President 1995 , 24). ...
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The global project of transitional justice (TJ) traditionally has been packaged in a multi-pillar model with criminal justice, truth recovery, reparations, institutional reform, and memorialization, and the norms they enshrine, seemingly presented as interventions of equivalent status at the level of policy. This article aims to enhance the theorizing on TJ as a “norm cluster” by comparatively examining the relations between the norms found in the cluster in transitional practices in Colombia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. We claim that the relations between the norms of TJ are hierarchically organized, with the anti-impunity norm being positioned as normatively superior. Through an analysis of TJ processes in the two countries in the past three decades, we discuss how such a hierarchy was established, secured, and challenged. Our findings show that hierarchical relations arise primarily due to legitimacy concerns and are manifested as changes in the internal structure of the anti-impunity norm whereby its prescribed behaviors or measures, i.e., criminal trials, seek to fulfill a range of new values. We argue that, in search for ownership and legitimacy, political actors have overemphasized the role of criminal trials by increasing their “social weight” and positioned them as indispensable for achieving the values of truth, reconciliation, and non-recurrence, disturbing the internal structures and co-opting the spaces of other measures in the TJ norm cluster. Such normative superiority of anti-impunity is significant and detrimental for the TJ global project. It has resulted in other TJ mechanisms being weakened by or dependent on judicial procedures, and it has enhanced competing and revisionist truth-making while promoting a narrow understanding of accountability. Ultimately, we establish that the normative superiority of criminal justice continues to challenge the prospects of complex and comprehensive TJ and that the place of anti-impunity in the norm cluster should be rethought.
... The restorative justice processes are based on social structure changes, reconstruction programs, and civil society organization creation. In Rwanda, Gacaca community courts have been an effective tool for achieving justice and reconciliation (Clark, 2010;Fox, 2021). However, results of some surveys challenged the effects of Gacaca, showing that it deepened conflict, resentment, and ethnic disunity (Rettig, 2008). ...
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This article concentrates on the construction of meanings of justice among civilians in the aftermath of war and mass violence. The article explores how such meanings are constructed, either from perceptions and memories of times of peace or memories of times of war. Based on the analysis of oral histories in the three regions of Sudan—Darfur, the Nuba Mountains region of South Kordofan, and Blue Nile state—we conducted cross-sectional analysis of themes related to the experiences of peace, war, and justice. The method of data collection was oral history interviews that concentrated on eyewitness testimony of respondents’ experiences of war in their home region as well as their vision of justice for a country ravaged for decades of systemic inequality. The interviews were analyzed using thematic and cross-sectional analysis. While the majority of researchers to date concentrate on the production of the meaning of justice based on the experiences of war, conflict, and violence, our study demonstrates that the respondents also saw the advancement of justice as returning to the peaceful time in the aftermath of war. Such construction of “peace-based” conception of justice has potential implications for the design and implementation of justice programs that, to date, tend to focus on experiences of war and conflict rather than visions of peace.
... Notably, in 2014 the famous pop star Kizito Mihigo was arrested during the commemoration season by the government for writing a commemoration song which suggests that all deaths (Hutu and Tutsi) which occurred during the genocide were equal (Mwambari 2020:9). This period of juridical imprecision also overlapped with the gacaca grassroots genocide trials (from 2002 to 2010), which, despite giving many survivors a sense of justice (Clark 2010), also directly and indirectly exposed many Rwandans to corrupt and paranoid practices of persecution (Chakravarty 2016;Geraghty 2020;Ingelaere 2016). ...
Article
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Conversations around transitional justice often focus on concepts of victimhood and perpetration. Such has been the case in Rwanda in the decades following the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi. However, even as Rwandans continue to observe state-led transitional justice reforms which divide them into victims and perpetrators, they simultaneously draw on state discourses of unity to carefully critique and re-work the language and practices which produce such divisions. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork, Berman illustrates how a new generation of Rwandan youth is transforming political genocide ideology by creatively engaging the discourse of ubunyarwanda (Rwandanness) to forge inclusive post-genocide politics.
... The researchers did not probe further on the topic of forgiveness, which was repeated by several girls as a strategy for overcoming the impact of sexual violence. However, the wider literature suggests that this is highly relevant to understanding not only norms about sexuality, but how justice for sexual violence is framed in this context (Clark, 2010;Coast et al., 2019;Williamson, 2014). Neither was the exchange that is sometimes reported to be at the heart of forgiveness processesfor example, forgiveness in return for payment of school fees or other financial compensation to parents (Gerver, 2013)elucidated through probing, despite girls alluding to 'handling (rape) within the family'. ...
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This article discusses the piloting of vignette research tools within focus group discussions involving 34 adolescent girls aged 15–19 in Rwanda. The purpose of the research was to elucidate norms around sexual violence. Through a ‘collective capabilities’ lens, which focuses on ways to move beyond change at the individual level towards empowerment processes that benefit all girls, we reflect on the opportunities this methodological tool offers for expanding girls’ understanding of the norms that enable sexual violence, and the context-specific ways they can respond. After providing an overview of the vignettes exercise and the way in which the vignette on sexual violence was used with participants, we present girls’ accounts of sexual violence drawn from discussions based around the vignettes and our analysis of these findings. We find that gendered social norms around gender, sexuality, age, and responsibility for safety that apportion blame to girls who experience sexual violence play a role in preventing girls from using reporting mechanisms. Although girls have a strong sense of this being unfair, they realise they must also find ways to navigate these norms to avoid being blamed for their own victimisation. Based on this data, we suggest that the use of vignettes in the context of qualitative longitudinal research offers insights into norms about the drivers and causes of sexual violence that are otherwise challenging to elicit because of the sensitivity of the topic. We find that vignettes can be an empowering tool, both in raising ‘unspoken’ issues girls face and in creating the opportunity for girls to collectively work out pathways to accountability in a context where sexual violence is widespread but underreported. However, strategies to address sexual violence must account for barriers to reporting that include the social implications for girls of identifying perpetrators and exposing themselves to stigma and blame.
Article
Research involving survivors of sexual violence requires particular ethical and safety considerations. In this article I outline challenges that I encountered when preparing and conducting interviews with female survivors of sexual violence in Rwanda. My research design was informed by phenomenological and feminist approaches, which assisted in sensitising me to and addressing matters specific to my fieldwork. Besides methodological issues deriving from the role of a qualitative researcher, the challenges included identifying and inviting participants, managing logistics relating to the interviews, researching in another language, building rapport with interview participants, referral to support services, and self-care. In this article, I discuss what I did to overcome these issues, making reference to existing literature and training that helped me in preparing for my fieldwork. Summarising my experiences, I provide a list of key experiences and lessons learned at the end of the article, aiming to help researchers prepare for their work with vulnerable groups. I also highlight a number of ethical issues that I perceived as particularly challenging and suggest that they require further discussion in the future.
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Numerous researchers, policymakers, and activists have advocated for the use of person-first language when referring to people who engaged in crime or violence. Such advocacy is rooted in firm evidence that person-first language (e.g. a person who committed a felony rather than a felon) is associated with lower rates of recidivism, more robust reintegration into communities, and less fear amongst members of the public. In this article, we extend this important discussion to genocide studies. Specifically, we suggest that genocide scholars — as well as policymakers, reporters, and other professionals — should consider the power tied to labelling people by their actions, as well as the impacts of these labels. To do so, we rely upon interviews with 165 people who were incarcerated for genocide in Rwanda, whom we interviewed both during their incarceration and upon their release. Given that the movement toward person-first language hinges on how people want to be labelled, we emphasize how those who committed genocide speak about themselves. Ultimately, we encourage consideration of person-first language following violence, which would involve departing from terms like perpetrator and genocidaire. We simultaneously acknowledge the discomfort in this discussion and underscore that person-first language does not remove responsibility for heinous actions. Rather, scrutinizing common terminology is part of our ethical duty to reflect upon the impact of our words.
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Ruanda soykırımı faillerinin yargılanmasında olağan mahkemeler yanında işlerlik kazandırılan Gacaca yargısı, özellikle halkın katılımına dayanan işleyişiyle Batılı liberal yargı modelinden farklı bir sistem olarak adil yargılamanın uluslararası biçimsel standartları temelinde eleştirilere tabi tutulmuştur. Bu eleştirilerde, hükümeti olağan mahkeme sistemini destekleyecek arayışlara sürüklemiş olan mevcut koşulların göz ardı edildiği görülmektedir. Bu koşullar hem devletin maddi imkansızlıklarını hem de soykırım vahşetiyle parçalanmış sosyal dokunun yeniden inşası ihtiyacını içermekteydi. Bu eleştiriler aynı zamanda da Gacaca yargısının dayandığı değer, amaç ve mantığı temelinde sanıklara sunduğu güvenceleri ihmal etmekteydi. Gacaca geçiş süreci adaletinin sihirli bir değneği olmasa da, göz ardı edilen bu hususlar, pratiğinde ortaya çıkan sorunların Gacaca'nın Batılı liberal yargı modeline dönüştürülerek çözülmesinin hem koşullar itibariyle olanaklı olmadığını hem de Ruanda'nın soykırım sonrası ihtiyaçlarına karşılık veremeyeceğini göstermektedir. Bu durumda Gacaca pratiğinde ortaya çıkan sorunların kaynaklarının belirlenmesi ve bu şekilde gelecekteki geçiş süreci adaleti uygulamalarına yol gösterilmesi isteniyorsa, Gacaca analizinin Gacaca'nın temellerini oluşturan koşullar, amaçlar ve yapısal özellikleri arasındaki bağlantılar ile içerisinde işlediği siyasal durum esas alınarak yapılması gerekmektedir. The Gacaca judiciary which was functionalized along with ordinary courts in the trials of the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide as a system differing particularly with its operation based on the participation of the people from the Western liberal judiciary model, was subjected to criticism based on international formal standards of fair trial. It is observed in these criticisms that the existing conditions, which led the government to pursuits aiming to reinforce the regular court system, are ignored. These criticisms were, at the same time, neglecting the guarantees that the defendants were provided with before the Gacaca courts on the basis of the values, purpose and logic on which they were based. Even though the Gacaca might not be the magic wand of transitional justice, these neglected points demonstrate that solving the problems that have arisen during its practice by transforming Gacaca into a Western liberal judiciary system was not possible considering the circumstances, and it could not respond to Rwanda’s post-genocide needs. In this case, if one wishes the sources of the problems that emerged within the practice of Gacaca to be determined and in this way transitional justice practices in the future to be guided, the analysis of Gacaca needs to be carried out by grounding it on the connections between the conditions, purposes and structural properties that constitute its base, and the political context within which it has functioned.
Book
Hearing is an intricate but delicate modality of sensory perception, continuously enfolded in the surroundings in which it takes place. While passive in its disposition, it is integral to the movement and fluctuations of one’s environment. Always attuned to the present and immersed in the murmur of its background, hearing remains a situated perception but fundamentally overarching and extended into the open. It is an immanent modality of being in and with the world. It is also the ultimate juridical act, a sense-making activity that adjudicates and informs the spatio-temporal acoustics of law and justice. This collection gathers multidisciplinary contributions on the relationship between law and hearing, the human vocalisations and non-human echolocations, the spatial and temporal conditions in which hearing takes place, as well as the forms of order and control that listening entails. Contributors explore, challenge and expand the structural and sensorial qualities of law, and recognise how hearing directs us to perceiving and understanding the intrinsic acoustic sphere of simultaneous relations, which challenge and break the normative distinctions that law informs and maintains. In exploring the ambiguous, indefinable and unembodied nature of hearing, as well as its objects – sound and silence – this volume approaches it as both an ontological and epistemological device to think with and about law.
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The human capacity to obey orders, even leading to atrocities, no longer requires proving. As Howard Zinn famously pointed out, “historically, the most terrible things—war, genocide, and slavery—have resulted not from disobedience, but from obedience” (Zinn, 1997). However, the question of “how” people can commit atrocities when they follow orders remains open. Milgram’s studies famously revealed a strong compliance with the orders of the experimenter but such studies only revealed the situational and social factors supporting obedience. They did not enable us to understand how so many people accepted to administer painful and potentially deadly shocks to another person. In the present article, I will contrast qualitative interviews conducted with former perpetrators of genocide in Rwanda and experimental research in neuroscience to attempt to provide a partial answer to this critical question. I will argue that transcending the boundaries of different scientific disciplines is key to a better understanding of how obedience alters prosociality. I will also defend the provocative idea that researchers should take the opportunity to leave their laboratories to study the issue of obedience.
Article
This article contributes to the discourse on aesthetic citizenship within the context of recent policy shifts in Rwanda. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in 2019, I examine two recent import bans of beauty products affecting second-hand fashion and skin-whitening cosmetics, which have had significant implications for the everyday aesthetic practices of Rwandan sex workers. While both initiatives were ostensibly progressive, with the rejection of donated clothing from the West and the prohibition of hazardous cosmetics, these policies have had profound consequences for those whose livelihoods rely on aesthetic labour as a means of social currency. Utilizing the concept of ‘aesthetic citizenship’, I examine how post-genocide Rwanda has expanded its pursuit of creating a harmonious state to include regulations with aesthetic ramifications. Against this backdrop, I demonstrate that by challenging the state-upheld notions of appearance, my sex-worker interlocutors expanded their aesthetic belonging and consumption beyond Rwanda, navigating their aesthetic desires in its borderlands.
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'Lawfare' describes the systematic use and abuse of legal procedure for political ends. This provocative book examines this insufficiently understood form of warfare in post-genocide Rwanda, where it contributed to the making of dictatorship. Jens Meierhenrich provides a redescription of Rwanda's daring experiment in transitional justice known as inkiko gacaca. By dissecting the temporally and structurally embedded mechanisms and processes by which change agents in post-genocide Rwanda manoeuvred to create modified legal arrangements of things past, Meierhenrich reveals an unexpected jurisprudence of violence. Combining nomothetic and ideographic reasoning, he shows that the deformation of the gacaca courts – and thus the rise of lawfare in post-genocide Rwanda – was not preordained but the outcome of a violently structured contingency. The Violence of Law tells a disturbing tale and will appeal to scholars, advanced students, and practitioners of international and comparative law, African studies and human rights.
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'Lawfare' describes the systematic use and abuse of legal procedure for political ends. This provocative book examines this insufficiently understood form of warfare in post-genocide Rwanda, where it contributed to the making of dictatorship. Jens Meierhenrich provides a redescription of Rwanda's daring experiment in transitional justice known as inkiko gacaca. By dissecting the temporally and structurally embedded mechanisms and processes by which change agents in post-genocide Rwanda manoeuvred to create modified legal arrangements of things past, Meierhenrich reveals an unexpected jurisprudence of violence. Combining nomothetic and ideographic reasoning, he shows that the deformation of the gacaca courts – and thus the rise of lawfare in post-genocide Rwanda – was not preordained but the outcome of a violently structured contingency. The Violence of Law tells a disturbing tale and will appeal to scholars, advanced students, and practitioners of international and comparative law, African studies and human rights.
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Chapter 5 is the first of three chapters concerned with the institutional development of the gacaca courts, their formation and deformation. In conjunction, these chapters chart the transition from legalism to lawfare in post-genocide Rwanda, one of two explanatory pathways traced in the book. By carefully dissecting the temporally and spatially embedded mechanisms and processes by which elites of the Rwandan Patriotic Front maneuvered to create modified arrangements of things past, these chapters excavate the microfoundations of the authoritarian rule of law in Rwanda. This chapter traces the obscure beginnings of the idea of gacaca in pre-genocide Rwanda, then accounts for the modernization of this social imaginary in the late 1990s.
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Chapter 6 is the second of three chapters concerned with the institutional development of the gacaca courts, their formation and deformation. In conjunction, these chapters chart the transition from legalism to lawfare in post-genocide Rwanda, one of two explanatory pathways traced in the book. By carefully dissecting the temporally and spatially embedded mechanisms and processes by which elites of the Rwandan Patriotic Front maneuvered to create modified arrangements of things past, these chapters excavate the microfoundations of the authoritarian rule of law in Rwanda. This chapter foregrounds the legislative foundations of the gacaca project. Along with the next chapter, it gives a detailed account of the economy and ingenuity with which Rwanda’s new rulers devised and waged the strategy of lawfare. What it also makes clear, however, is that the deformation of Rwandas gacaca courts – their violent legalization – was not an inevitable outcome.
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Background and purpose: attachment style is one of the effective factors in interpersonal interactions, which is formed as a result of a person's relationships with attachment figures (parents, peers, spouse) and significantly affects the performance and marital relationship. The purpose of this study was to determine the moderating role of the attachment style perceived by parents in the relationship between the couple's attachment style and the level of forgiveness in them. Methods: The research method was correlation type. The data were collected through three questionnaires - family forgiveness scale (FFS), RSQ attachment style questionnaire and attachment style scale towards each parent (Hazen and Shiver) from 200 couples living in Tehran (400 people) using multiple cluster sampling method. It was collected step by step. To analyze the data, statistical methods of correlation coefficient and multiple regression were used. Results: The results obtained from the data analysis showed that there is a significant relationship between the attachment styles towards the spouse with self-forgiveness, with the spouse's forgiveness (P<0.001) and the perception of attachment styles from parents (P<0.001). There is. Perceived attachment styles from parents had a moderating role in the relationship between attachment style to spouse and self-forgiveness and spouse's forgiveness (P<0.001). Conclusion: It seems that these spouses forgive themselves and their spouses more easily. In contrast, people with ambivalent and avoidant perceived attachment style towards mother, avoidant perceived attachment style towards mother and ambivalent towards father are more difficult to forgive their spouse in marital relationship.
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Building Bridges: The Role of African Culture in Promoting Peace and Unity is an exploration of the rich and diverse cultures that make up the African continent, and the ways in which they have been instrumental in building bridges between different communities, fostering understanding, and promoting peace. As an educator and researcher, I have had the privilege of witnessing firsthand the transformative power of African culture. From the traditional dances and music that bring people together, to the communal values and customs that emphasize respect for one another, African culture has played a crucial role in promoting peaceful coexistence in diverse communities. In this book, I draw on my years of experience to provide a comprehensive overview of African culture and its impact on peacebuilding. I delve into the history and significance of different cultural practices, examine the ways in which they have evolved over time, and highlight their relevance in contemporary times. I hope that this book will serve as a valuable resource for scholars, students, and anyone interested in understanding the complex interplay between culture and conflict resolution. It is my hope that by exploring the rich and diverse cultural heritage of Africa, we can build bridges of understanding and promote a more peaceful and unified world.
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O presente artigo faz parte de uma pesquisa ampliada que tem como principal objeto o governo de Ruanda após o genocídio de 1994. Neste momento, busca-se analisar o modo que o governo ruandês orienta o ensino da história recente de Ruanda. Tal proposição ensino da história opera de modo a dar mais visibilidade à alguns conteúdos substantivos, e esconder outras informações acerca do passado ruandês. Para tal, analisamos como fontes alguns materiais produzidos pelo governo ruandês e pelo seu Ministério da Educação, principalmente o guia para professores de história, que é fundamental para a difusão da história ruandesa nas escolas e para a população local como um todo. A escolha e valorização de determinados episódios e sujeitos históricos, assim como o apagamento e silenciamento de outros podem nos demonstrar como o controle e o ensino da história são importantes para a consolidação de projetos políticos autoritários.
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In most post-conflict societies, memory becomes part of the process of healing, humanising and reflection for victims of abuse. To ensure these are achieved, some present-day governments have assisted victims of violence through material, infrastructural and legal enablements so as to house memory and make it a site of learning, reflection and convergence, and facilitate healing and closure. This chapter looks at how the victims of the Zimbabwean 1980s genocide, commonly referred to as Gukurahundi, have confronted the government of the day, the main perpetrator of the genocide, through the non-violent and yet potent actions of memory and memorialising. To that end, the chapter asks questions about the meanings and legality of memory in the Global South, how Zimbabwe compares with its peers who have memorialised past atrocities, and finally what memorial plaque destruction means in a context such as Zimbabwe.
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Many claims have been made about what should account for the actual or real genocide in Rwanda. Many, if not all, of these claims focus on a tale of two genocides—involving the uniqueness of either Tutsi or Hutu memories—which has over time produced a curious faction of the post-1994 Rwandan subject. What these contending views seem to ignore is that there can never be collective memory to which all citizens subscribe since history and memory are unavoidably contested. With the aid of Rupert Bazambanza’s Smile Through the Tears (2007) and Pierre-Claver Ndacyayisenga’s Dying to Live (2012), this chapter argues that the vilificatory representations of the ethnic Other in the two texts have over time produced a Manichean tapestry of Tutsi victimology versus Hutu suffering, and vice versa. The essay does not attempt to offer a comprehensive or comparative treatment of ‘the two genocides’. Instead, it moves beyond textual analysis to pinpoint the broader political and social implications of memoricide in post-1994 Rwanda.
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This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note that the online publication date for this handbook is the date that the first article in the title was published online. For more information, please read the site FAQs.
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This article looks at how political violence in Rwanda, that of the genocide against Tutsi in 1994 and beyond, is remembered, narrated, and embedded in everyday sociality. It makes two related arguments. Taking the aftermath of Rwanda's Gacaca courts (a transitional justice mechanism implemented between 2005 and 2012) as my point of entry, I argue first that violence, though narrated as past in these courts, is imagined as returning in the future, and the present is the space to prepare for this inevitable return. This structuring temporal logic, or genocide‐time , undergirds everyday social relations between the protagonists of Gacaca courts years after their official end. Second, both survivors and perpetrators of the genocide claim forms of racialized victimhood, a legacy of European imperial categorizations of Rwandans into Hutus and Tutsis. Genocide‐time signals a temporal moment in which ethnic categories, crucial for colonial management, become racialized and deeply entangled with political violence. Shared claims to racialized victimhood today, I argue, index this longer history.
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Modern state law excludes populations, peoples, and social groups by making them invisible, irrelevant, or dangerous. In this book, Boaventura de Sousa Santos offers a radical critique of the law and develops an innovative paradigm of socio-legal studies which is based on the historical experience of the Global South. He traces the history of modern law as an abyssal law, or a kind of law that is theoretically invisible yet implements profound exclusions in practice. This abyssal line has been the key procedure used by modern modes of domination – capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy – to divide people into two groups, the metropolitan and the colonial, or the fully human and the sub-human. Crucially, de Sousa Santos rejects the decadent pessimism that claims that we are living through 'the end of history'. Instead, this book offers practical, hopeful alternatives to social exclusion and modern legal domination, aiming to make post-abyssal legal utopias a reality.
Article
Despite the proliferation of transitional justice, scholars have rarely researched the emotional toll on those who implement transitional justice mechanisms. This article accordingly examines the emotion management techniques employed by eighty-five judges who served in Rwanda’s post-genocide gacaca courts. Most of the intrapersonal and interpersonal emotion management strategies we find are gendered, with men generally emphasizing strength and women underscoring empathy and understanding. Moreover, the dimensions of identity that were most salient during the conflict also shaped the judges’ interpersonal emotion management strategies. Specifically, judges who were not targeted during the genocide focused on regulating emotions tied to punishing defendants, while judges who were targeted emphasized survivors’ emotional catharses. As such, our findings show how conflict divisions and gender norms structure the expression of emotion during transitional justice processes.
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In this article, we argue that the gender policies implemented by the Government of Rwanda have been introduced in order to strengthen the democratic credentials of the regime in the eyes of international donors. In order to do so, we have structured the paper in three parts. First, the article examines the political structure of Rwanda, highlighting the dominance of the RPF and the criticisms of its authoritarianism. It also explores the narrative constructed by the RPF, focusing on the portrayal of Tutsi as victims and Hutu as offenders, and the impact of this narrative on international aid. The second part of the essay explores the feminist movement in Rwanda before and after the Genocide, emphasizing the reconfiguration of gendered power relations and the emergence of grassroots women organizations. Finally, it analyzes the implementation of gender policies in Rwanda, considering the tension between transformative feminist goals and the increasing authoritarianism of the state. The main conclusion we have arrived at is that the gender policies applied by the RPF have lacked a transformative impact and that, rather, they have been used as a public relations strategy to disguise the increasing authoritarianism of the government.
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The article examines the legal and institutional foundations of the fight against the international community and individual states with the crime of genocide and other crimes in Rwanda. An analysis of the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court for Rwanda in the field of combating international crimes has been carried out. The features of judicial activity in solving issues of bringing persons to justice for committing the crime of genocide are revealed. Key words: international criminal court, genocide, Rwanda, non-international armed conflict, responsibility.
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This article examines the gacaca trials of women accused of perpetrating the Rwandan genocide, asking whether and how ideas about their gender impacted their defences, testimonies and experiences as defendants. It uses court reports of the trials of 91 accused women; a set of sources that provides novel insights into the role of gender in an African transitional justice system. These sources reveal that ideas about gender – particularly female peacefulness and passivity – were commonly invoked by both accused women and wider trial participants. These gendered ideas not only helped women to achieve acquittals, but they also contributed to the Rwandan state's construction of a ‘truth’ narrative that ordinary Rwandan women are not capable of genocide violence. Additionally, women's trials reveal a further function of the gacaca process: as a political tool that made moral judgements about contemporary Rwandan women's domestic roles and place within the household.
Article
Rwanda has been a focus of substantial scholarly attention, but recent regulations there have made conducting research increasingly challenging. Four books from diverse disciplines show that, despite the ways in which the authoritarian context places constraints on what research can be undertaken and how it can be done, solid scholarship on Rwanda can continue to be produced. They also show that the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi remains the focal point of nearly every book on the country, even those focused on society since 1994.
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As vicissitudes da justiça penal internacional (JPI) e, em particular, o pretendido “afrocentrismo” do Tribunal Penal Internacional (TPI), que concentraria suas atividades exclusivamente contra os ditadores africanos, são denunciadas de maneira recorrente. Se a jurisdição criminal de cunho universal, criada em 1998, não constitui a panaceia para condenar todos os dirigentes que cometem crimes internacionais, não podemos negar, todavia, o impacto positivo que ela já induziu: a sua finalidade não é julgar todos os carrascos do planeta, mas oferecer um paradigma de justiça imparcial e respeitosa das garantias processuais fundamentais e, dessa forma, estimular as jurisdições nacionais a endossar suas responsabilidades ao processar seus responsáveis por crimes de lesa-humanidade cometidos no seu território. Nesse sentido, o fato de os Estados africanos imaginarem alternativas regionais ao TPI pode ser considerado como uma contribuição positiva da JPI à luta contra a impunidade. Com a finalidade de estudar o novo fenômeno de "africanização" (no sentido definido por Achille Mbembe, de uma África percebida como laboratório vivo onde se delineiam as figuras do mundo vindouro) do direito internacional penal, realizou-se uma pesquisa bibliográfica, com enfoque na literatura africana, baseada em procedimentos metodológicos comparativos e históricos, guiada por uma abordagem dedutiva amparada, notadamente no estudo de tratados e de casos jurisprudenciais internacionais. A pesquisa utiliza o escopo da teoria da interdependência complexa, defendida por R. Keohane e J. Nye, que ressalta a relevância dos atores transnacionais para estudar e compreender as relações internacionais. O primeiro tópico será consagrado às contribuições e aporias dos tribunais criminais internacionais ad hoc, em particular o Tribunal Penal Internacional para Ruanda e o Tribunal penal para a Ex-Iugoslávia e ao TPI de cunho permanente, que provocaram o movimento de africanização da JPI. O segundo examinará uma das primeiras manifestações dessa regionalização do DPI, a saber, a criação das jurisdições criminais híbridas, como o Tribunal Especial para a Serra Leoa e as Câmaras Africanas Extraordinárias. O terceiro tópico abordará a relevância da tentativa de implantação de um tribunal penal internacional africano de caráter permanente, iniciativa que visa adaptar a JPI às particularidades e aos anseios do continente negro.
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What does a consideration of the place of grace in the therapeutic relationship have to add to our understanding of the healing process? This article explores the experience of bereavement and healing in the aftermath of loss among members of a Catholic Charismatic community in Rwanda. Considering cases in which divine healing is experienced as either having succeeded or having failed, I argue that the healing process involves acts of sacrifice and gifting, taking place between the mourner, God, and social others, and that the central sacrificial gesture constituting this process is the sacrifice of the self as lived prior to loss. I suggest that in order to understand gifting and sacrifice’s therapeutic potential, we must read them as acts anchored in grace or gratuity.
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Killean considers the applicability of Environmental Restorative Justice (ERJ) in transitional settings. Bringing critical transitional justice scholarship into dialogue with the emerging body of environmental restorative justice literature, this chapter argues that ERJ offers a challenge to two of the transitional justice field’s limitations. First, an ERJ approach offers a challenge to transitional justice’s anthropocentrism, by creating space for the recognition and representation of other-than-human victims of conflict. Second, ERJ offers a challenge to the field’s neo-colonial tendencies, by facilitating the design of mechanisms that are more inclusive of Indigenous harms and understandings of justice. By entrenching an ERJ ethos, the chapter argues that transitional justice may present one effective vehicle for rethinking relationships between diverse human communities and the natural world.
Article
Law has translated the coronavirus crisis into politically salient forms in people's lives, from states of emergency, to border closures, to mask mandates. Yet political theory work on these forms has focused on constraining arbitrary state power. In this paper, I try to broaden this focus. Substantively, I argue that policy and its implementation also matter to how we theorize the role of law in crises, in terms of how we understand the political power of society and its relationship to the state. Methodologically, I argue that thinking about law in this way is more than a complement to or replacement for thinking about constraints on arbitrariness. Rather, different forms of thinking about law and crisis should constantly be used to critique each other in order to pursue the sorts of legal innovations required by geomobile and interconnected crises. Given that the current pandemic and its broader consequences are still unfolding, I turn to development policy and practice to demonstrate the process and consequence of such ongoing critique in action. Studying rule of law reforms—including during the West African Ebola crisis—I show how practitioners continually reimagined law in ways that facilitated ongoing legal innovation that could adapt to the politics of the crisis.
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This article discusses the importance of justice and the benefits that result from justice, in a post conflict, especially post genocide, society. It discusses the complexity, including the potentially harmful effects, of the novel justice system-the Inkiko-Gacaca, or people's courts-that have been created in Rwanda. They include the possibilities of retraumatization, new trauma, and renewed hostility. The article discusses ways that the positive potential of Inkiko-Gacaca for healing and reconciliation can be enhanced, such as helping people understand the potential impact of giving and hearing testimonies, ways of supporting each other by listening and empathy, and especially understanding the influences leading to genocide. The importance of truth for justice, healing, and reconciliation that embraces the experience of both groups is also noted.
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Since the genocide, development agencies have spent tens of millions of dollars in Rwanda on justice, governance, security and reconciliation - issues they used to consider far beyond their mandate until very recently. As a result, Rwanda has emerged as one of the countries where the new postconflict agenda is being most strongly implemented, under extremely difficult conditions. An analysis of donor behaviour in two high politics areas - the nature of the government and justice - shows that deep and unresolved ethical problems exist with this post-conflict agenda. Lack of information and understanding, conflicts between goals and principles, the difficulty of associating the people concerned in an equitable manner - all these and other issues render unclear the ethical basis upon which donors can base decisions which often have life and death implications for thousands of people.
Book
The genocide in Rwanda in 1994 presented the international community with challenges of unprecedented scale. This is a comprehensive account of the response of the United Nations and its Member States to civil strife, large-scale massacres and military hostilities. More than 180 key documents relating to the crisis are included, as well as an extensive introduction by Sectretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and a detailed chronology of events.
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In the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, both the international community and the government of Rwanda have placed substantial emphasis on the prosecution of alleged perpetrators, in part because they hope that justice will promote social reconstruction. With trials at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) based in Arusha, Tanzania, in national courts in Belgium and Switzerland, in classical courts in Rwanda, and in an innovative, local judicial system, gacaca, the Rwandan genocide has received greater judicial attention than any other case of mass atrocity in recent history. Because of the military defeat of the regime that carried out the genocide and the willingness of many countries to support judicial processes, a very substantial number of the alleged perpetrators have been apprehended and are awaiting trial. Hence, Rwanda might provide an excellent case for determining whether trials do in fact contribute to reconciliation. Yet each of the judicial initiatives has been beset with problems, and the contribution of the sum of their activities to reconciliation remains unclear. Both international and domestic prosecutions have focused exclusively on the genocide, while war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly perpetrated by some power-holders in the post-genocide regime have been ignored, compromising the appearance of fairness in judicial processes. The Arusha Tribunal has remained detached from Rwandan society, focusing more on legal processes and contributions to international law than on its potential impact within Rwanda. Domestic prosecutions, meanwhile, have been politicized.
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On April 6, 1994, a plane carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi was shot down as it approached the airport in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, killing all on board. The assassination of President Juvénal Habyarimana served as a pretext for launching a long-planned program to eliminate political rivals to the president and his supporters. Violence was initially focused in the capital, as the presidential guard and other elite troops targeted opposition politicians and civil society activists of all ethnicities. As the group of military and political leaders who assumed control of Rwanda carried the violence into every corner of the country, however, it quickly assumed the clear characteristics of genocide, since it focused on Rwanda's minority ethnic group, the Tutsi, regardless of their political activity, class, age, or gender. By the time the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) took control of the country in mid-July 1994, more than half a million people had been killed. In the decade since the 1994 genocide and war, the government of Rwanda has undertaken a variety of programs to attempt to promote reconciliation, combat impunity, and prevent future communal violence. The government has built numerous memorials and established annual commemorations of the genocide, sought to create unity by adopting a new national anthem, flag, and seal, overseen the drafting of a new constitution and various political reforms, and instituted programs, including “solidarity camps” for students, former prisoners, and returned refugees to teach a revised history of the country.
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One day in June 2002, Donatilla Iyankulije, a 27-year-old farmer with no more than a ninth grade education, found herself in the extraordinary position of presiding over a ceremony attended not only by the public but by numerous provincial and national officials, and members of the national and international press. Iyankulije, who lived in the Gishamvu Sector of southern Rwanda, assumed this important public role because she had been chosen as president of a local gacaca court, a new grassroots legal mechanism adopted by the Rwandan government to respond to the legacies of the country's 1994 genocide. The government had selected Gishamvu Sector as one of twelve sectors in the country in which to test the gacaca system, and as president of the gacaca court in one of Gishamvu's three cells, it fell to Iyankulije to preside over one of the inaugural sessions of the gacaca courts held across the country that day. The Rwandan government's decision to implement gacaca grew out of extensive national-level discussions over the country's future in the late 1990s, in which it was determined that citizen participation in the search for justice would be critical, not only for the manifestation of the truth about what happened in the genocide, but also to the creation of a conducive environment for the reconciliation of Rwandans. Modeled after a traditional Rwandan dispute resolution mechanism but adapted to modern legal sensibilities, gacaca was envisioned as a vast program that would involve a large part of the population either as judges or witnesses.
Conference Paper
Historians of the Great Lakes region cannot remain aloof from the momentous crisis in the area, both because the various parties draw them into it and because the foundations for the future historiography of this crisis are now being established. This situation raises the following issues: (1) the paradox of massive but extremely flawed evidence, (2) the use of history to reinforce pervasive political myths, and (3) the actions historians can undertake now to lay the groundwork for a more balanced historiography in the future.
Article
Advocates of humanitarian intervention often claim that 5,000 U.N. troops alone could have staved off the Rwandan genocide in 1994, But a more realistic appraisal suggests that an intervention of any size would have required much more time and logistical planning than most proponents care to admit. Given the genocide's terrifying pace, even a major mission by the West could have saved only a fraction of the ultimate victims. Herewith a reassessment of the limits of intervention.
Article
Readers of Issue know better than to accept the images of tribalism and ancient hatreds propagated in much of the American press during the early days and weeks of the genocide in Rwanda. And the media (or at least some journalists) came around eventually to a recognition that far from mindless tribal violence, this was planned and calculated genocide. Still, in North America it is the deaths and brutality that have most mesmerized public attention; there has been too little discussion of the political, social, and economic context in which the genocide occurred.
Article
In countries emerging from periods of great political turmoil, particularly turmoil associated with gross violations of human rights, the question of how to deal with the past has been a crucial part of the transformation process. The issue is: how does a society return to any sort of normality when two neighbors living side by side are, respectively, victim and perpetrator of heinous crimes? Perhaps nowhere else in the world is this question more vital or more difficult than in Rwanda, the small, poor, rural, inland African state that became the site of one of the bloodiest genocides ever known. This article advocates the establishment of a commission in Rwanda as a means of beginning reconciliation and rebuilding a unified country. Although Rwanda presents many daunting challenges for a truth and reconciliation commission, or any other process that would promote unification and tolerance, it is appropriate for a number of reasons. Firstly, the ongoing animosity and retributive violence between the current and former governments and their respective followers is evidence that the status quo is not working. Secondly, the Rwandan Government is not equipped to channel all responsible parties through the traditional legal system. Finally, a properly constituted commission would generate public awareness of what really happened.
Article
For the survivors of the genocide of the Tutsis, testifying to their traumatic past must be envisioned in relation to the political and ideological tensions that define the representations of Rwanda's national history. Bearing witness represents the possibility `of' and the call `for' a dialogic space where survivors seek to redefine the present meaning derived from the experience of the genocide and its haunting resonance. In their attempt to re-envision and re-assert themselves through testimony, survivors move from a position of being subjected to political violence to a position that entails the promise of agency. In this regard, Mujawayo's dialogic and polyphonic art of witnessing is a unique resource. Her testimonies seek to generate a social space within which the survivors can negotiate, and eventually reclaim, the meaning of their survival and to assert the demands of the traumatic aftermath they face.
Article
Typical for international state-building interventions, the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor relied on a fundamentally western model in its attempt to establish a rule of law. At independence, an official judiciary was trans ferred to Timorese control as part of the new government. However, this institution has proved to be one of the weakest minted during the transitional period, in part because it was placed on top of an entirely different, indigenous system of justice at the grassroots level. The concept of a crime, and means of redress, or a conflict and process of resolution, accepted as legitimate by the local population contradicted the type of judiciary being imported. UNTAET failed to appreciate the resilience of local structures, and therefore did not reconcile the two contrasting systems of justice. International approaches to post-conflict (re)construction of a rule of law have to be re-thought, taking account of indigenous notions of justice in the architecture of a formal judiciary.
Article
The National Resistance Army (NRA) led by Yoweri Museveni against the Obote regime in Uganda saw itself as a peoples army leading a peoples war. The bush war 1981-1986 was according to an NRA political commissar no mere elite power struggle; it was a revolution aimed at replacing the old regime with structures moulded during the course of the struggle by the masses in accordance with their interests and the demands of the times (Ondoga ori Amaza 1998 p. 28). Those structures were to be institutions of self-government down to the village level that included justice and policing. Fresh from the Frelimo training camps of Mozambique the NRA leadership was enthralled with the possibilities of popular justice: a justice that was said to be popular in form because its language was open and accessible; popular in functioning because its proceedings involved active community participation; and popular in substance because judges were drawn from the people and gave judgment in the interests of the people (Museveni 1997 p. 30).They no longer followed the Weberian tradition that the state alone should make law and establish order; that rational bureaucracy and formal justice were the very essence of the modern world (Weber 1954). Instead they recognised that norms and systems of ordering can also arise spontaneously and that from time immemorial people had generated their own forms of popular justice. (excerpt)
Article
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.
Article
France is now the world's second largest armsexporter, and the largest supplier of weapons to thedeveloping world. The record of France's involvementin Rwanda from 1990 to 1994 has motivated the NGOlobby within France to subject French governmentpolicy – towards the developing world in general, andon arms supplies in particular – to unprecedentedscrutiny. Accordingly, the level and volume ofcriticism of French involvement in Rwanda resulted inthe first ever parliamentary commission to scrutiniseFrench military activity overseas, although this andother official inquiries stopped short of identifyingarms supplies as instrumental in exacerbating theRwandan crisis. A consideration ofFrench arms supplies to Rwanda can offer a template bywhich to measure the nature and degree of France'ssupport for the Habyarimana regime which planned, andthe Sindikubwabo interim government which oversaw, the1994 genocide in that country. Moreover, French armssupplies after France's own and the UN's arms embargodemonstrate how a process of unchecked militarisationmay involve the supplier as well as the supplied inillegality.
Article
This article compares Enright's cognitive-developmental model of forgiveness (Enright et al., 1989, 1991, 1992, 1994) with a model of forgiveness based on communication between the wronged and the wrongdoer. While unilateral forgiveness is unconditional and is a process which happens wholly within the person who has suffered an injustice, negotiated forgiveness requires of the wrongdoer (1) confession; (2) ownership; and (3) repentance for their actions. Unilateral forgiveness is built upon the principle of identity; in contrast, negotiated forgiveness begins with, and extends Piaget's principle of ideal reciprocity. Enright's highest stage of forgiveness reasoning is one in which considerations of social context are transcended; in the model of negotiated forgiveness, such understanding of context is central. Whereas unilateral forgiveness is a wholly intraindividual phenomenon, negotiated forgiveness is quintessentially social and dynamic. Using the example of truth and reconciliation commissions, the article examines the implications for the relationship between justice and forgiveness, according to each model. Published (author's copy) Peer Reviewed Published (author's copy) Peer Reviewed
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This article recounts a clash between an establishment international nongovernmental organization (NGO), Amnesty International, and the government of Rwanda over the meaning of international human rights norms in a postconflict society. It offers a critical perspective on the mainstream human rights community's due process critique of Rwanda's gacaca - a system of over ten thousand local judicial bodies modeled on a precolonial communal dispute resolution the Rwandan government introduced to process the over one hundred twenty thousand suspects crowding its prisons following the 1994 genocide. This moment of norm contestation offers a lens to broader problems facing the human rights regime. The paper argues that Amnesty International's legalistic approach to the gacaca prevents it from appreciating its unique postcolonial hybrid form, and that other approaches, such as the one adopted by Penal Reform International, are perhaps better models for human rights praxis in the developing world.
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Faced with an overflowing caseload and imperatives of national reconciliation, Rwandan authorities have established a system of justice, meted out through gacaca courts under the legal framework created by organic laws. The following contribution analyses this framework, within the context of national and international legal systems, and pinpoints the shortcomings of the proposed form of justice. These include legal issues such as the problem of retroactivity, as well as the definition of crimes and concerns over due process and the right to a fair trial for defendants. Practical and material obstacles arise in implementing the organic laws, alongside broader implications owing to the traditional nature of such courts and possible interference by political authorities. In this respect, the gacaca courts may be victims of their own ambitions, by seeking to respond to judicial, societal and philosophical concerns alike.