Interventionist media in times of crisis

Abstract

On December 3rd, 2003, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) announced that "Ferdinand Nahimana, founder and ideologist of the Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM), Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza, high ranking board member of the Comité d';initiative of the RTLM and founding member of the Coalition for the Defence of Republic (CDR), and Hassan Ngeze, chief editor of Kangura newspaper, were convicted today for genocide, incitement to genocide, conspiracy, and crimes against humanity, extermination and persecution.'; 1 In what was dubbed 'the media trial';, the ICTR examined the role of the radio station RTLM and the newspaper Kangura in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda to address, for the first time since the Nuremberg Trials, the role of the media in the context of international criminal justice. The ICTR judgment echoes the 1946 judgment of the International Military Tribunal against the NS journalist Julius Streicher, and will continue to inspire commentary on media accountability and the status of the long-dormant 1948 UN Genocide Convention as a core element of contemporary international criminal justice.