On 27 July 2007, the promulgation of legislation by Rwanda – the first country in the Great Lakes region – to abolish the death penalty was announced.

The decision should allow the extradition to Rwanda of persons accused of genocide in order to stand trial in its national courts for the massacres in 1994. The abolition was one of the conditions set by the UN-backed International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) to allow the transfer of genocide suspects to the Rwandan judiciary. It will also allow countries which had refused to hand over suspects to the national courts because they might have faced the death penalty to do so now. The last death sentences in Rwanda were imposed in 2003 and the last executions were carried out in 1998 when 22 people found guilty of genocide-related crimes were executed. Some 600 Rwandans should see their death sentences commuted to life imprisonment as a direct result of the bill’s promulgation.

Louise Arbour, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, praised Rwanda’s decision, saying that “Rwanda simultaneously takes an important step forward in ensuring respect for the right to life and makes further progress in bringing to justice those responsible for the heinous crimes of the 1994 genocide”. The bill was initially put forward by the Rwandan Patriotic Front of President Paul Kagame, approved by the cabinet at the beginning of the year and by the parliament over the past two months.

Rwanda became the 100th country worldwide to abolish the death penalty in law, including 13 other African countries. Another 30 countries in the world are abolitionist in practice.