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48 Geo. Wash. Int'l L. Rev. 505 (2015-2016)
International Criminal Courts in Actions: The ICTR's Effect on Death Penalty and Reconciliation in Rwanda

handle is hein.journals/gwilr48 and id is 537 raw text is: INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURTS IN ACTION: THE ICTR'S EFFECT ON DEATH PENALTY AND RECONCILIATION IN RWANDA SIGALL HOROVITZ* ABSTRACT This Article focuses on a major reform encouraged by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)-the abolition of the death pen- alty in Rwanda. For a decade prior to this reform, Rwandan courts had been imposing the death penalty in genocide cases. Using a qualitative empirical research method, still uncommon in international legal stud- ies, the Article shows how the ICTR's requirements influenced the aboli- tion, and then considers the impact of the abolition on national reconciliation in Rwanda. The findings suggest that the abolition has contributed to reconciliation, including through re-humanizing perpetra- tors and their relatives, improving survivors' perception of society, and inspiring both survivors and perpetrators to envision a shared future. This is remarkable considering that, during the debates on the ICTR's establishment, Rwanda insisted that sentencing genocide perpetrators to death was necessary for post-conflict justice and reconciliation. This Article thus sheds a new light on the relationship between international tribunals and national reconciliation. In particular, it suggests that international tribunals can advance national reconciliation (and thus attain one of their explicit goals) through encouraging domestic legal developments such as death penalty reforms. Moreover, by raising awareness of the abolition's positive effects on interethnic relations in Rwanda, the Article could inform debates about the future of capital punishment in other death penalty countries. * Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Minerva Center for the Rule of Law under Extreme Conditions, Faculty of Law and Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Haifa; Associate Research Fellow, Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; former legal advisor at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the Special Court for Sierra Leone; Ph.D. 2014, Hebrew Univer- sity; LL.M. 2003, Columbia University. This Article benefited from presentations at semi- nars at the University of Copenhagen (Nov. 27-28, 2014), the University of Haifa (Dec. 24, 2014) and the Hebrew University (Jan. 20, 2015). I thank Yuval Shany and Victor Peskin for their valuable remarks and encouragement, and the Minerva Center for the Rule of Law under Extreme Conditions for supporting this research through its fellowship program.