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The
Statute of the ICTR grants the Tribunal the right to try
persons accused of genocide (art. 2), crimes against humanity
(art. 3), and certain war crimes applicable to internal
armed conflicts (art. 4). Like the Yugoslav Statute, the
Rwanda Statute also considers criminal responsibility
as individuals and as superiors (art. 6(1) and 6(3)).
Owing to differences in events on the ground (Rwanda being
primarily an internal conflict characterized by genocide)
the language of the ICTY and ICTR Statutes varies somewhat
as to what may be prosecuted within each respective court.
The
ICTY and ICTR are separate institutions, each having its
own Statute and Rules of Procedure and Evidence. Neither
Tribunal is bound by the jurisprudence of the other, although
they tend to rely upon and agree substantively with the
legal conclusions in prior decisions of the Tribunals.
However, the ICTY and ICTR do share a common Appeals
Chamber, which has adopted the following position on precedent:
"[I]n the interests of certainty and predictability,
the Appeals Chamber should follow its previous decisions,
but should be free to depart from them for cogent reasons
in the interests of justice." (Aleksovski Appeals
Chamber Judgment (ICTY) of 24 March 2000, adopted by the
Semanza Decision, Separate Opinion of Judge Shahabuddeen
(ICTR) of 31 May 2000).
Thus far, the ICTR has tried approximately ten cases,
with about dozen accused. Approximately four cases are
in various stages of the appeals process. Below are summaries
of the most notable precedents to date.
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