Helen Hintjens' chapter on 'The Creation of the ICTR', on the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, is published as part of the Edward Elgar Companion to the ICTR.
Edited by Anne-Marie de Brouwer (Tilburg) and Alette Smeulers (Groningen), 'The Elgar Companion to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda' provides a one-stop reference resource on this complex tribunal, established in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, which closed its doors on 31 December 2015.
In the opening chapter, Helen Hintjens argues that the urgency of establishing the ICTR was prompted by the absence, in 1994, of any international court (such as the International Criminal Court today) that was able to hold individuals accountable for war crimes, genocide and other crimes against humanity.
In light of the international community's shameful failure to protect Rwandan civilians during the genocide, the ICTR was first set up under the auspices of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Besides convicting some senior architects and engineers of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the main achievement of the ICTR has been to establish in the historical record the incontrovertible fact of an organized genocide that targetted Tutsi and moderate Hutu seen as their supporters. It can be noted, in passing, that minority Twa victims are still generally overlooked.
This Companion provides an insightful account of the workings and legacy of the ICTR in the field of international criminal justice.