International

Iain Morley QC worked for four years at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Tanzania prosecuting four cases of genocide in Rwanda. He reports on the work performed by the tribunal.  

Between April and July 1994, in 100 days, at an average rate of 10,000 souls per day, almost one million minority defenceless civilian Tutsi men women and children were systematically butchered by the Hutu majority throughout Rwanda, mostly with machetes, knives, spears, and cudgels, sometimes with grenades and firearms, sometimes by the army and police, but mostly by fearsome civilian militias often called the Interahamwe. There is evidence very many of the several hundred thousand women were raped before being murdered. The pretext for the carnage was the assassination of the Hutu President Juvenal Habyrimana on 6 April 1994, against a background of ethnic troubles over generations, smoldering particularly after the advent of independence from Belgium in 1959. 

William Hotham gives an insider’s commentary on justice and accountability in Thailand’s troubled criminal justice system.  

Contemplation of Thai justice and its correctional system conjures connotations of lawlessness — not only amongst its criminals but amongst the law enforcers themselves. My prior conceptions, however, were fundamentally challenged when I undertook a legal internship in South East Asia with Bridges Across Borders South East Asia (BABSEA), an NGO formed to address humanitarian issues in the region. 

The legal community is reaching out to help Muzaffarabad rebuild its court system after the 2005 earthquake laid its city to dust, reports Fatim Kurji.  

Muzaffarabad, the capital of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, is cradled by lofty mountains and sits at the confluence of the Jhelum and Neelum rivers. A popular tourist destination, this busy city has always been a blend of cultures and peoples, and bustled with the activity of any major city. In October 2005, however, Muzaffarabad and its surrounding cities felt the wrath of an earthquake that hit 7.6 on the Richter Scale. The city was devastated. The human impact of the earthquake was immense and over 70,000 people perished. The international community quickly resolved to send aid and assistance. 

Following the systemic rape suffered by Sierra Leonian women during its civil war, Stephanie Farrimond reports on work to investigate the sexual offences and improve the rights of women.  

Teaching advocacy began in my Inn but has also taken me to the other side of the globe. Rarely, though, has it seemed so relevant as it did last year in Sierra Leone where I assisted in a programme which addressed sexual offences. Nothing much new there for the English Bar, but this was in a country where it is thought that up to a third of all the woman were raped during the 10-year civil war. I went out in October with my husband, Simon Carr, and DC Andy Lawrence of the Metropolitan Police, under the auspices of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), an American-based NGO which specialises in providing humanitarian relief to countries ravaged by war. Focus in recent years has been made in relation to gender-based violence on women in West Africa. 

Suella Fernandes and Philip Riches packed their wigs and gowns and joined a team of volunteer lawyers helping to regenerate Rwanda’s legal system.  

The tragedy of the Rwandan genocide of 1994 has been well documented in film and literature and travelling through the beautiful rolling hills of the country, “les Milles Collines”, it is hard to ignore the constant reminders provided by the victim memorial sites.