Citation

Jørgensen NHB. Int. Compar. Law Q. 2007; 56(04): 885-898.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, British Institute of International and Comparative Law, Publisher Cambridge University Press)

DOI

10.1093/iclq/lei205

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Judicial notice has become a widely used tool in the practice of international criminal tribunals but its use has always been constrained by the fair trial rights of the accused. This article considers the possible impact on those rights of the decision of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) Appeals Chamber to take judicial notice of the genocide in Rwanda as a notorious fact against the backdrop of the legal requirements for judicial notice as a fact of common knowledge and as an adjudicated fact. The question whether it would have been more appropriate to notice the Rwandan genocide as an adjudicated fact is addressed in the context of the implications for other instances of genocide, for example Srebrenica.