International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) was a temporary international criminal court established to prosecute individuals responsible for genocide and other serious violations of international humanitarian law connected with Rwanda in 1994. Its statutory mandate covered crimes committed in Rwanda and crimes committed by Rwandan citizens in neighbouring states, within a specifically defined period.

Establishment and limits of jurisdiction

The United Nations Security Council established the ICTR through Resolution 955, adopted on 8 November 1994, acting under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. The attached Statute defined the Tribunal's powers rather than giving it general jurisdiction over all international crimes.

• Its temporal jurisdiction covered only crimes committed between 1 January and 31 December 1994.
• Its territorial jurisdiction covered Rwanda, regardless of the accused person's nationality, and neighbouring states where the alleged crimes were committed by Rwandan citizens.
• The Tribunal's central function was criminal prosecution and adjudication, not the determination of responsibility of states.

Crimes within the statutory mandate

The Statute identified three categories of crimes over which the Tribunal had jurisdiction.

• Article 2 covered genocide: specified acts committed with intent to destroy, wholly or partly, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. It also covered conspiracy, direct and public incitement, attempt and complicity in genocide.
• Article 3 covered crimes against humanity when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population on national, political, ethnic, racial or religious grounds. Listed offences included murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, torture and rape.
• Article 4 covered serious violations of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol II, including violence against persons, hostage-taking, outrages upon personal dignity and pillage.

Individual responsibility and relationship with national courts

The ICTR exercised jurisdiction over natural persons, making individual criminal responsibility the foundation of its mandate.

• Responsibility extended to those who planned, instigated, ordered, committed, or aided and abetted crimes within its jurisdiction.
• Official position, including that of a head of state or government, did not relieve an accused person of criminal responsibility or mitigate punishment.
• Superiors could incur responsibility when they knew, or had reason to know, of subordinates' crimes and failed to take necessary and reasonable preventive or punitive measures.
• Under Article 8, the ICTR and national courts had concurrent jurisdiction, but the Tribunal had primacy and could request national courts to defer to it.