William Egbe
speaks on ...
temporal jurisdiction of the ICTR

Transcript

0:00
Yeah. We were not allowed to prosecute for those . . .
0:02
Donald J Horowitz: Okay.
0:02
. . . for the crimes that were committed before the, before the 1st of January 1994.
0:07
DJH: Okay.
0:08
But I will say that with a caveat . . .
0:10
DJH: Okay.
0:11
. . . because as we continued to develop jurisprudence there were certain exceptions to that.
0:15
DJH: Ah, good.
0:15
For example in cases of conspiracy. Both inter-, international criminal law actually allows that certain elements, for example e-, elements of planning and preparation that predate the acts within the temporal jurisdiction could be imported into the process of the trial, but even then it was clear that you could only import those acts of preparation that predated the temporal jurisdiction as a means of understanding the actual culpable acts within the temporal jurisdiction.
0:49
But that was a little, that was just a little waiver for the crime of conspiracy to commit genocide which needs planning, but for all other crimes like incitement you could not go beyond the temporal jurisdiction. Crimes against humanity, murder even on a large scale, genocide – you could not do that. So right from the beginning we were limited by our statute.
1:12
And it is unique in the sense that this limitation was only in respect of the Rwanda tribunal. The ICTY had a broader temporal jurisdiction. So questions were raised as to why you would decide to limit Rwanda in that manner and allow the ICTY a broader, as we say in French, ‘champ d'action.’
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About this video

Country of Origin:
Cameroon
Interview Date:
October 30, 2008
Location:
Arusha, Tanzania
Interviewers:
Robert Utter
Donald J Horowitz
Batya Friedman
Videographer:
Max Andrews
Excerpt From:
Part 7
Submitted By:
Voices from the Rwanda Tribunal team