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Is U.S. Cooperation with the UN Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda Unconstitutional?

by Paul Magnarella Factual Background On December 17, 1997 US Magistrate Marcel Notzon in Laredo, Texas stunned the US State Department and human rights advocates around the world by ruling that the congressional legislation enabling the US government to surrender or extradite indicted fugitives to the UN Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) was unconstitutional (1). […]

Judicial Responses to Genocide: The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the Rwandan Genocide Courts

by Paul J. Magnarella, University of Florida Abstract Following Rwanda’s 1994 appalling eruption into genocide, the UN Security Council, having created an international criminal tribunal for humanitarian law violators in the European States of the former Yugoslavia, decided it could do no less for African Rwanda. Because the Rwandan conflict was internal rather than international, the […]

Can the US State Department Surrender Rwandan Fugitives to the U.N. Criminal Tribunal?

by Paul J. Magnarella INTRODUCTION In an Order filed on 7 August 1998 in the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Laredo Division, Judge John D. Rainey ruled that Rwandan fugitive Elizaphan Ntakirutimana is properly extraditable to the UN International Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) (1). Judge Rainey’s Order reversed a 17 December […]

The U.N. Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda Concludes its First Case: A Monumental Step Towards Truth

by Paul J. Magnarella Introduction Over the past year, the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) has made significant progress in apprehending and prosecuting high ranking persons responsible for the 1994 genocide of Tutsi and moderate Hutu in Rwanda (1). The first case to be concluded at the ICTR, the case against Rwandan ex-premier […]