Transitional Justice & Rwanda: David Hume And The Limits of Jus Post Bellum

Abstract

Over 100 days in the late spring and early summer of 1994, approximately 800,000 Rwandan Tutsis and Tutsi-sympathizers were slaughtered in a campaign of violence orchestrated by Rwanda’s Hutu leaders in concert with a Hutu militia known as the Interahamwe. While the Hutu-extremists engaged in genocide, the international community stood idly by, hiding behind the moral cover of false histories, legal technicalities, and disingenuous claims that the choice not to intervene was a matter of respect for Rwandan sovereignty. Only after the Rwanda Patriotic Front had stopped the killing and defeated the extremist forces did France, under the guise of humanitarian concern, intervene. In reality, the French established a safe zone to protect their client – the Hutu-led Francophone genocidal government fleeing the country in defeat.[i]