Justice and Reconciliation In the Great Lakes Region of Africa: The Contribution of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

Abstract

The end of the Cold War, which paralyzed the United Nations from its inception, was a cause for celebration and hope. Following the historic Security Council Summit Meeting of January 1992, the then Secretary-General of the United Nations, Boutros BoutrosGhali, spoke of a growing conviction “among nations large and small, that an opportunity has been regained to achieve the great objectives of the U.N. Charter (Charter)—a United Nations capable of maintaining international peace and security, of securing justice and human rights and of promoting, in the words of the Charter, ‘social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.’” He warned, however, that this opportunity “must not be squandered,” and that the United Nations “must never again be crippled as it was in the era that has now passed.” In the months that followed, the international community was to experience shocking aberrations, reminiscent of a dark and seemingly remote past. Reports of “ethnic cleansing” and “death camps” surfaced from Bosnia-Herzegovina, only to be followed by the singular cataclysm of Rwanda in which nearly one million people perished in