by Victoria Melkisedeck Lihiru Abstract This article explores suitable electoral system(s) for the promotion of women’s representation in the Tanzania and Rwanda from a legal standpoint. The scrutiny of international law finds an absence of legal guidance on the favorable electoral system for enhancing the participation of women in elections, except trivially under the 1995 […]
by Ryan Goehrung Abstract Rwanda’s upcoming August 2017 presidential election provides a unique opportunity for the international community to reflect upon the past and contemplate the future of a nation that has struggled with intense ethnic factionalism for much of its history. In particular, incumbent President Paul Kagame’s bid for a third-term is cause to […]
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). […]
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by Tony Waters Certain thoughts about the Rwandan genocide of 1994 are commonly accepted. For the most part, these ideas have been used to explain the causes of the genocide and, by implication, propose solutions to Rwanda’s continuing problems. The status of these ideas within the media and policy circles, however, is problematic. Despite the […]
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by Thomas Turner Introduction Since the 1960’s, Laurent Kabila had led a group of insurgents against the dictatorial Mobutu Sese Seko government in Kinshasa, operating along Zaire’s eastern border (1). Kabila’s group was one of the many rebel movements in the East that had arisen with the aim of furthering the political program of Congo’s […]
by René Lemarchand Introduction In a matter of days last October, a large swathe of eastern Zaire erupted into an orgy of violence, sending tremors through the Great Lakes region and beyond. What brought Armageddon to the shores of Lake Kivu were the search and destroy operations launched by units of Rwanda’s Armée Patriotique Rwandaise (APR) […]
Introduction by Michael Chege In the third week of October this year, the “Cobra” militia, commanded by the former president of Congo-Brazzaville, Dennis Sessou-Ngueso, took control of the national airport and the presidential palace in Brazzaville thus bringing to an end the two-way civil war that pitted him against the forces of the democratically-elected president […]
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 […]
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 […]
Read more "Can the US State Department Surrender Rwandan Fugitives to the U.N. Criminal Tribunal?"
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 […]