We’ve spent several episodes digging into universal jurisdiction in countries like Belgium, France, and the United States. This time, instead of looking at how jurisdictions try foreign criminals accused of committing jus cogens crimes, we’re looking upstream to the country where the crimes were actually committed.

This week’s pod considers universal jurisdiction in the context of Rwanda, and more specifically, the harrowing Rwandan Genocide Against the Tutsi of 1994, where ethnic Hutu extremists massacred over 800,000 ethnic Tutsi and moderate Hutus in the span of only 100 days. It’s recognised as one of the most devastating modern genocides for its unprecedented speed, and was notoriously ignored by the international community during the 1990s. In the decades since, it’s produced a monolithic body of literature on transitional justice and accountability.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was set up by the United Nations Security Council in 1995 and later succeeded by the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (MICT). Between them, these bodies managed to indict 93 individuals for crimes committed in Rwanda. But the real bulk of accountability has come from efforts by Rwandan national authorities, and increasingly, from other countries through universal jurisdiction.

Now there’s the trial of Eugene N. — a Dutch-Rwandan national accused of inciting genocide and taking part in the massacre of some 3,000 Tutsi at the Mbazi stadium — which opened in June at The Hague District Court. Over thirty years after the genocide ended, alleged fugitives are still being tracked down and tried. But how many more names are still out there, hiding and waiting? Should they be extradited to Rwanda, or is prosecuting them abroad through domestic trials a more effective (and resource-efficient) path to justice? And in the wake of Felicien Kabuga‘s death, before he could be tried by the MICT, you have to wonder, as both victims and perpetrators age, how much time is left to get this right?

To help us answer these questions and more, we spoke with John Bosco Siboyintore, Head of Rwanda’s Genocide Fugitives Tracking Unit within Rwanda’s National Public Prosecution Authority. He’s spent his career leading Rwanda’s efforts to locate, arrest, and extradite suspects connected to the 1994 Genocide. We also spoke with Nicola Palmer, a Senior Lecturer at the University of Cape Town and Associate Professor of Criminal Law at King’s College London. Nicola has spent years researching Rwanda, including her 2015 monograph Courts in Conflict: Interpreting the Layers of Justice in Post-Genocide Rwanda, followed by a slew of articles on Rwanda and transitional justice. Together, they walk us through what cooperation between Rwanda and other states looks like when tracking down fugitives, the legal pluralism inherent to universal jurisdiction, the ongoing Kayishema case in South Africa, and the legacy of gacaca courts.

For recommendations this week, if you want to begin to understand what happened in Rwanda in 1994, John Bosco points to the historical report Leave None to Tell the Story by Alison Des Forges and Human Rights Watch, plus the Akayesu case at the ICTR. And for the “doubting Thomases” out there, he recommends the judicial notes of 2006 for the Karemera and others case, also at the ICTR in Arusha. Switching gears, Nicola recommends the books Blood’s Inner Rhyme by Antjie Krog and Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy.