Rwanda Crisis and Genocide in Case Law of Rwanda Tribunal

After the Second World War the public was shocked to learn about the horrors perpetrated. As a response to the Holocaust, the newly established United Nations adopted the Genocide Convention of 1948 to prevent future genocides and to punish the perpetrators. The Convention remained, however, almost dead letter until the present day. In 1994, the long-lasted tension between the major groups of Hutu and Tutsi in Rwanda erupted in mass scale violence towards the Tutsi ethnic group. The purpose was to eradicate the Tutsi population of Rwanda. The international community did not halt the genocide. It stood by idle, failing to follow the swearing-in of the past. The United Nations established the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (the ICTR) to bring to justice persons responsible for the genocide. Ever since its creation the ICTR has delivered a wealth of judgements elucidating the legal ingredients of the crime of genocide. The case law on determining the membership of national, ethnic, racial or religious groups has gradually shifted from the objective to subjective position. The membership of a group is seen as a subjective rather than objective concept. However, a totally subjective approach is not accepted. Therefore, it is necessary to determine some objective existence of a group. The provision on the underlying offences is not so difficult to interpret compared to the corresponding one on the protected groups and the mental element of genocide. The case law examined, e.g., whether there is any difference between the words killing and meurtre, the nature of mental harm caused by the perpetrator and sexual violence in the conflict. The mental element of genocide or dolus specialis of genocide is not thoroughly examined in the case law of the ICTR. In this regard, reference in made, in addition, to the case law of the other ad hoc Tribunal. The ICTR has made a significant contribution to the law of genocide and international criminal justice in general. The corpus of procedural and substantive law constitutes a basis for subsequent trials in international and hybrid tribunals. For national jurisdictions the jurisprudence on substantive law is useful while prosecuting international crimes.

Evil Gods and Reckless Saviours : Adaptation and Appropriation in Late Twentieth Century Jesus-Novels

Late twentieth century Jesus-novels search after a completely new picture of Jesus. Novels written for instance by Norman Mailer, José Saramago, Michèle Roberts, Marianne Fredriksson, and Ki Longfellow provide an inversive revision of the canonic Gospels. They read the New Testament in terms of the present age. In their adaptation the story turns often into a critique of the whole Christian history. The investigated contrast-novels end up with an appropriation that is based on prototypical rewriting. They aim at the rehabilitation of Judas, and some of them make Mary Magdalane the key figure of Christianity. Saramago describes God as a blood thirsty tyrant, and Mailer makes God combat with the Devil in a manichean sense as with an equal. Such ideas are familiar both from poststructuralist philosophy and post-metaphysical death-of-God theology. The main result of the intertextual analysis is that these scholars have adopted Nietzschean ideas in their writing. Quite unlike earlier Jesus-novels, these more recent novels present a revision that produces discontinuity with the original source text, the New Testament. The intertextual strategy is based on contradiction. The reader wittnesses contesting and challenging, the authors attack Biblical beliefs and attempt to dissolve Christian doctrines. An attack on Biblical slave morality and violent concept of God deprives Jesus of his Jewish Messianic identity, makes Old Testament law a contradiction of life, calls sacrificial soteriology a violent pattern supporting oppression, and presents God as a cruel monster who enslaves people under his commandments and wishes their death. The new Jesus-figure contests Mosaic Law, despises orthodox Judaism, abandons Jewish customs and even questions Old Testament monotheism. In result, the novels intentionally transfer Jesus out of Judaism. Furthermore, Jewish faith appears in a negative light. Such an intertextual move is not open anti-Semitism but it cannot avoid attacking Jewish worship. Why? One reason that explains these attitudes is that Western culture still carries anti-Judaic attitudes beneath the surface covered with sentiments of equality and tolerance. Despite the evident post-holocaust consciousness present in the novels, they actually adopt an arrogant and ironical refutation of Jewish beliefs and Old Testament faith. In these novels, Jesus is made a complete opposite and antithesis to Judaism. Key words: Jesus-novel, intertextuality, adaptation, slave morality, Nietzsche, theodicy, patriarchy.