The Promises of New Constitutional Engineering in the Post Genocide Rwanda

Abstract

Conflicts of such a magnitude as the one committed in Rwanda owe their causes to a multitude of factors, and ultimately require a multi-dimensional responses each of which plays a role in addressing the underlying roots of the conflicts. As a legal response to the problem, the Constitution of Rwanda was adopted by a referendum in May 2003. This contribution is an attempt to gauge the role of the Constitution in reordering Rwandan society along a new social equilibrium. Seen against the backdrop of the genocide that decimated a tenth of the country's populace, the paper has focused on the identification of the causes of the genocide and the evaluation of the substantive, procedural and institutional innovations of the Constitution in its attempt to build a new path for the post-genocide Rwanda.

Keywords: Rwanda, Human Rights, genocide, Cosntitution, Election, Multi-ethnic states

JEL Classification: K19