Work:
In any event, work has been pretty enjoyable. As part of ALAD (Appeals and Legal Advisory Division), I'm working on appellate briefs of defendants who helped orchestrate the Rwandan genocide in 1994 against the Tutsis. For about a week, I edited a draft of a brief, which was fine. On the one hand, I can't complain because I got to work really closely with the team and I'm doing substantive work, which is more than a lot of other interns can say. On the other, I kinda wish that I was doing something legitimately legal rather than editing someone else's legal drafting. Given that my super has a strong preference for American style of writing / citations, though, I may be given an opportunity to draft something on my own. Even if I don't, I think I may try to write some substantive piece this summer, particularly because it will probably come in handy in either/both my International Human Rights seminar in the fall of my Refugee seminar in the spring. Unknown to me, most of the defendants being tried here were caught through immigration proceedings (defendants use fake names and then are expelled from the country of residence, etc). In fact, there's a whole DOJ department dedicated to capturing war criminals who attempt to fraudulently gain legal status in the US. Maybe my paper might address this?
Besides the editing, I helped another attorney prepare for his first oral arguments on Tuesday. In the ICTR, we only have jurisdiction over three crimes: genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. There are several different modes of liability for each of these, including instigating, aiding and abetting and commission, among others. This Attorney, SH, is doing an appeal for a case where the defendant was not found guilty of commission because he didn't physically kill anyone himself. However, in at least three other ICTR decisions, the Appeals Chamber has held that a defendant can be held guilty of committing genocide/extermination/etc if he was an integral part of the crime by participating, encouraging, ordering or providing material items required to commit the crime.
For instance, in one case, Prosecutor v. Seromba, the defendant was a priest who was found to offer refuge to Tutsi and then expel several of them from his church, knowing that the Interhamwe were just outside and ready to kill them. Even worse, he encouraged, ordered and advised a driver to bulldoze the church with over 2000 Tutsi refugees inside, assuring the driver, who refused to bulldoze the church on the bourgmestre's orders, that trash/rubbish/demons (depending on your translation) had tainted the church, that it needed to be bulldozed and Hutu would build a new church. What was very striking (and Christians and/or those more knowledgeable, please correct me if I have my biblical history wrong) was that Seromba ordered the driver to destroy the church three times. I originally thought Judas had done something three times, but now I think that it was Peter who denied him three times? Ah... not sure. In any event, it was striking. If I can figure out exactly why, I'll edit or clarify later. In any event, he was convicted of committing a war crime (extermination) even though he didn't actually bulldoze the church or kill anyone.
Essentially, I had to read the Trial Chamber Judgements (yes, here it is spelled with an 'e') to figure out what the Trial Chamber convicted the defendant of and see if they cited the theory about commission from this other case (Gacumbitsi); review the Appeals Chamber and see what their judgement said about Gacumbitsi / what convictions they upheld; and then track the convictions and Gacumbitsi application to the Indictment. We were really looking to see what language the trial attorney used in the indictment to see if the language we used in our indictment would likewise justify a conviction for commission without raising problems of notice (ie: if you only say he instigated, then a conviction for commission would be unfair because he was not aware that you would try to convict him of commission and arguably, his defense would have been different). Make sense? If not, ask me to clarify. I know I'm including way too much info, but I find this stuff really interesting. AND SH said it was "perfect, exactly what I'm looking for." So, when I watch his oral arguments next Tuesday, I'll know I had a hand in making his argument stronger! :-D
Fun:
AJ and I had a pretty uneventful weekend. Friday, I went to lunch with my super at a pretty Americanized place. Near the end of our lunch, MS and EB showed up and joined us. We talked about the Peace Corps, the Balkans, and my super's legal experiences there and here (given MS and EB's interests, respectively). My super eventually left and AJ met us at the cafe. We were waiting for JP, who had traveled to Rwanda and was supposed to give MS/EB tips on their next trip. After waiting almost an hour for him, we decided to head back to the UN to grab some alcohol for a potluck we discovered one of our roommates was planning for that evening. We then walked to a bar on the opposite side of the Tribunal, where we had a few drinks, played some pool and chatted with EA and Stanley, a new friend. I asked EA about what I'm doing to keep getting guys after me, and he explained that I "look like an African woman" and because so many older white women come to TZ to have sexual relations with the men here, the guys get the wrong idea about my intentions. Even if I say that I am engaged or married, if my fiance/husband is not with me, it doesn't matter and they won't leave me alone. So... I pretty much can't be friends with any locals who are somehow attracted to me. Boo.
Around 7, we went back to the house and discovered that none of the interns had brought food with them to the potluck. Uhm.... right. So, AJ and MS bought chips from Blue House (and had our guard, Seff, guarded by another guard haha) while I made some pasta + veggies. AJ and I weren't really in the mood for a party, so we went upstairs, chatted, read and eventually fell asleep lol. I woke up later to MS coming in the room, so I got up, grabbed my stuff and went downstairs to sleep on the couch for a final night (before I finally got my own room)! :-D
We originally planned to do a waterfall hike on Saturday, but after JP said he was planning a different hike (that his landlord knew about/would drive him to maybe but if not, people would hitchhike) and other people wanted to join him so we decided to do that. Once we knew MS and EB were still in town though, AJ and I ditched the hiking plan and decided to go with MS/EB to some school and then to the tourism fair. After everyone woke up on Saturday though, we discovered EB's plan was uber complicated and it was probably best that we not try to traipse all over TZ. Honestly, I was irritated that I had given up the hike for cancelled plans . . . until I found out how the hike went. AK told us how JP's landlord hadn't told him about this hill to hike - he just saw it on the bus back to Arusha from Nairobi and decided he wanted to climb it. Long story short, it turned out to be military land and the four interns were discovered by 2 TZ soldiers who accused them of trespassing. The soldiers eventually got 2 Masai men to guard them as well. While JP was very nonchalant about the whole situation, the other interns, all female, were not pleased that they were suddenly outnumbered 4:3 to men with weapons and power. Even worse, two of them did not have any ID and the UN IDs the other two had were laughed at by police (one because it was Korean and the other because one of her surnames was Masai). After several hours of interrogation and finally getting JP to agree to delete the photos of the land off his camera, AK made it home alive and safe.
Later, EB texted AJ about getting MS to the bus station by 430, which definitely did not happen because we were at ShopRite and MS didn't have a phone. MS left soon after and AJ and I had a pretty low-key night, playing Monopoly Deal (for those who haven't played - don't judge; play first, you'll love it. Promise.).
We tried to go to Blue Heron (an expat restaurant) because internet was being so finnicky but discovered we actually didn't know where it was. Oops. We grabbed some food from the store (dried mango - 2000Tsh!) and returned home. MS came back over for a little bit but then said his final "final goodbye" (this kid has said "goodbye" at least 4 times). I think AJ was a little sad to see him go, but hopefully she'll see him soon. Maybe in Kigali?? We applied for seats on the UN plane this weekend since MS/EB will be in Rwanda (hopefully). How awesome would it be to spend a weekend with them in another country? Very. We find out tomorrow whether we got seats. If that falls through, AJ is thinking about going to Arusha National Park with some friends from Chambers and I may go to Zanzibar with some friends. We'll see how all works out...
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