ABSTRACT
This book began with a description of observations made of the Gacaca court operating in the district of Kanombe, a community just outside of the capital city, Kigali. This particular court was part of the pilot-project of the National Service of Gacaca Jurisdictions that was begun in 2002. Based on observations made following the launch of the pilot-project and research into the effectiveness and feasibility of these courts, changes were made to the Organic Law. In 2005, the Rwandan Government launched the revised Gacaca nationally in each of the 9,100 cells throughout the entire country. While it will take several years to determine how successful the Gacaca are in achieving their mandate, in the meantime it is possible to try and understand this process and to draw some initial conclusions about the Gacaca, the national judiciary, and the ICTR. Operating parallel to each other across different realms of Rwandan society, these three separate judicial systems all share a common search for justice. How they approach the achieving of that mandate is different. Their prospects for success are related to the Rwandan definitions of justice and methods for seeking it.
