ABSTRACT
The Rwandan state to which the author was accredited as the United States Ambassador in January, 1994 was on a similarly dangerous road. The judicial reform envisioned in the Arusha agreements wanted courts that were representative and equitable. Judicial reform in post-war Rwanda based its hiring on selective notions of merit and focused on proving guilt. In May 1994, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights convened an emergency session of the Commission on Human Rights, giving the international community a new opportunity to respond to the challenge of genocide. When elements of the Tribunal finally landed in Kigali, it was as if there had been no UN presence there in advance of the Tribunal's arrival. The Tribunal's team wanted their own office, their own vehicles, their own radios, and their own security detail, in spite of 5500 UN peacekeepers on the ground.
