ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an international human rights law-based critique to the Genocide Ideology Law and, in doing so, considers the provisions of the original 2008 Law as well as the amended 2013 Law. For a number of years, the Genocide Ideology Law has provided a focal point for international authorities and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to criticise Rwanda on its human rights record, specifically on freedom of expression. There should be no penalty for and no criminalisation of the offence of 'genocide ideology' in the terms of international human rights law. In any event, the Law has had a broader social impact stretching beyond those who have been actually charged, prosecuted and punished. While certain forms of speech ought to be prohibited under international law, meaningful reckoning with the past and building resilience for the future cannot be achieved in such societies without freedom of expression being allowed to flourish.
