By referring to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) as a case study, this paper seeks to explore the impact of outreach activities by international criminal tribunals. Building upon primary field research findings, including twenty-seven in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with 108 respondents, this paper applies a theory-driven investigation of the impact of outreach activities by the ICTR. Contrary to the theoretical argument, on a national level throughout society over time, outreach activities by the ICTR did neither increase awareness and understanding, nor shape positive perceptions towards the Tribunal and its expected contribution to reconciliation. Furthermore, a comparison of groups of outreach participants and control groups shows that outreach did increase the level of knowledge among beneficiaries of such activities. An increased understanding, however, cannot be correlated with more positive perceptions towards the Tribunal or its role in promoting reconciliation.
This article discusses definitions of crimes included into the Act of 18 December 1998 on the Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation, and their usefulness in prosecuting individuals who committed international crimes. It is argued that the provisions of the Act cannot constitute a ground for criminal responsibility of individuals, as they violate the principle of nullum crimen sine lege certa.
The crime of genocide is one of the most severe crimes. Its commission always takes time, requires planning, and results in substantial human sacrifices. It is never a single or accidental act but always conscious and deliberate. The commitment of genocide requires performing one of the acts (actus reus) enumerated in the 1948 Genocide Convention and perpetrated specifically against the members of a protected group, which represents the material element of the crime. However, the element that makes genocide one of the worst crimes ever known to humankind is the perpetrator’s special intention of destroying a protected group – the mental element of the crime, i.e., dolus specialis, whose complexity and severity has been confirmed before the international criminal ad hoc tribunals and the ICJ.
Genocide was defined in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and on normative grounds it was not subject to any amendments. Nevertheless, it was interpreted by different courts and tribunals which exercise the jurisdiction in the context of this crime. The courts defined the notions of the “protected group”, “to destroy the group”, “to destroy in whole”, and so on. After almost seventy years of its adoption, the Convention is quite a lively document with timeless value, and only constant recalling of the cultural genocide by the domestic courts reiterates that this crime left outside the Convention still needs its place in binding international law.
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