The important judicial decisions of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) have enriched the law on genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Human Rights Watch today released a comprehensive digest with the judgments of the tribunal presented by topic.

Burundi's government should immediately reverse a new policy of deporting Rwandan asylum seekers without considering their cases. On November 27, 2009, Interior Minister Edouard Nduwimana ordered police to return 103 asylum seekers to Rwanda, in violation of international law.

Britain believes that its aid to Rwanda is morally irreproachable because the stated aim is helping the poorest. Who could reasonably argue with that? The problem lies not in intentions but in execution, and failing to understand the consequences of large sums being handed to authoritarian states without sufficient conditionality.

The Commonwealth has developed a 21st-century role – as a haven for serial human rights abusers.

Human Rights Watch writes to the Burundian Interior Minister to ask him to ensure that all Rwandan asylum seekers currently present in northern Burundi are permitted to file asylum applications, in accordance with their rights under Burundian and international law. We also urge the Minister to ensure that, in the future, all Rwandan and other asylum seekers, both those currently in the country or those who might still arrive, are able to freely lodge asylum claims.

The Government of Burundi should immediately evaluate the claims of up to 400 Rwandan asylum seekers and stop all efforts to coerce them to leave the country.

As a newly minted investigator at the International Criminal Tribunal in Rwanda in 1995, I was not sure how people in Kigali, Rwanda's capital, would respond when I told them my line of work. In casual conversations at local restaurants I was surprised by how often I was asked if the tribunal planned to investigate crimes committed by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF).

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda may lose its credibility unless it indicts and tries Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) officers suspected of having committed war crimes in Rwanda in 1994.