Defence lawyers draw lessons from ICTR

Olivier Nyirubugara (Brussels: 23 May 2010).The Second International Criminal Defense Conference ended last Sunday 23 May in the Belgian capital Brussels, after two days of enriching presentations and discussions on a variety of subjects relating essentially to the Lessons from the Defense at the Ad Hoc UN Tribunals, and Prospects for International Justice at the ICC. Defense attorneys from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), from the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY), and a former attorney at the International Criminal Court (ICC) as well as scholars in legal, media, history, memory studies; human right activists and authors, addressed an audience of about 150 people coming from all over the world. Many other eminent scholars could not attend but their papers were available in print at the conference.

Opening the conference, Law professor and defense attorney André Tremblay said: No solution to the problems we will evoke here will come from the [ICTR] Registrar. No solution will come from the [ICTR] President. That is why our action should be directed to the UN Security Council. Many issues were discussed, including poor health care for detainees that has cost the life of one of them, the review of trials which defense attorneys think is no longer a right but an exception, the partiality of the ICTR, its failure to contribute to reconciliation, the role and influence of media on conflicts and justice, foreign jurisdictions dealing with genocide suspects, the Rwandan legal system and its breach to human rights, among others. All the papers are to be found on this web site and the videos of the presentations made. A few analytical video reports are also available, as well as the impressions of some of the participants.

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• Rwanda
• ICTR
• International Criminal Law
• genocide
• Hutu
• Tutsi
• Olivier Nyirubugara