Human Security Centre Human Rights and International Security Research

Today is the ‘International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and Its Abolition’. This week the international society remembers the slave trade and its abolition. However, with an estimated 20-30 million victims subject to modern-slavery, this crime is still all too present in our societies.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) faces major challenges in its decision to turn against members of its former advocate and the subsequent lack of cooperation from the RPF, would turn out to be a major obstacle for Rwanda's reconciliation process in the years to come.

Twenty years ago, in April 1994, South Africa held its first democratic elections after forty years of apartheid. Decades of segregation, injustice and suppression came to an end as the rainbow nation was born under the leadership of Nelson Mandela. South Africa was set on the right path, but equal rights were merely the foundation - not a guarantor - for equal economic opportunities.

Ten years after its establishment in Arusha, Tanzania, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights is still hampered by shortcomings that would render any court ineffective. Whilst the willingness to establish a human rights court on a continent victim to devastating crimes against humanity is commendable, the Court is characterised by