The 20
th
century witnessed several wars and genocides worldwide. Notable examples include the
Armenian and Jews genocides which took place during World War I and World War II
respectively. The Rwandan genocide of 1994 is a more recent example where a large number of
the population was affected, either as victims or perpetrators. Over 800,000 Tutsis were dead,
and more than 120,000 suspects were in prison for the genocide. The present study focuses on
the Rwandan genocide against Tutsi where the scale of the crimes simultaneously dictated the
overwhelming need for justice at both international and national level.
At the international level, the ICTR was set up by the United Nations to deal with the organisers
of the genocide while the Rwandan national courts were left to deal with the remaining suspects.
Yet it became increasingly clear that the national courts lacked themselves the capacity to deal
with the vast majority of alleged perpetrators. If their impact was to be enhanced, they needed to
rely on the support of alternative justice mechanisms. So Rwanda introduced a modern version
of the traditional Gacaca courts as an attempt to deal with the huge backlog of cases in order to
combat the culture of impunity.
However, having different courts for one and the same situation has had its own limitations. One
of these issues is the legal and practical disparities that exist between the ad hoc International
Tribunal and national justice mechanisms in the process of prosecuting perpetrators, such as the
unequal treatment of the accused. This study therefore attempts to show these discrepancies and
their impact on the process of accountability and reconciliation. Thus, the study analyses the
relationship between the ICTR, national courts and Gacaca in prosecution of genocide suspects
as well as lessons from the adopted ‘multifaceted approaches’ to deal with the crime of genocide.