Justice pénale internationale pour la paix et la réconciliation

Abstract

AbstractInternational criminal justice has made a tremendous leap forward since the mid-1990s. Gradually, it tends to reacting more and more to situations of armed conflict with declared objectives aiming at restoring peace and bringing about reconciliation among people. To what extent have these objectives been achieved?This article is revolves around this important question. The analysis is particularly focused on the case of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, where the author has been working for the past ten years. Ad hoc international tribunals have helped formalizing the judicial recognition by the international community of crimes that go against the conscience of the entire mankind. They consecrate their disapproval of the commission of such offences. In so doing, they contribute towards fighting impunity, which has for long been associated with those offences. They function in an environment where conventional national jurisdictions would have found it difficult to operate with efficiency. The author is neither overestimating nor underestimating their contribution. It is presented as one of the components in a reply that is inescapably of a multiple nature, to some complex situations where a remedy is as difficult as the illness to be cured. It is in this perspective that such contribution is indeed appreciated.