As many readers will be aware the Court has been grappling with Rwanda’s decision in February this year to withdraw its Article 34(6) Special Declaration, which allows individuals and NGOs with observer status direct access to the Court.
This is the first time a member state has tried to extricate itself from a Special Declaration and its been at the forefront of many Court observers thinking for the past six months. Now, over six months since its original decision was made, the Court has finally posted the Order dealing with Rwanda’s withdrawal. I will be posting a much longer analysis of the Order next week. But for now, the major takeaway is that Rwanda’s withdrawal will be effective from 1 March 2017, meaning that the Court will continue to entertain applications from individuals and NGOs with observer status up until 28 February 2017. In short, Rwandans now have a limited time before their applications will be inadmissible before the Court.
With this in mind we are now adding a Rwexit countdown to The Monitor’s homepage, counting down to 28 February 2017. I hope we can get the word out to Rwanda and beyond that there is now a limited time to bring cases directly before the Court- use it before you lose it.
The Rwexit Countdown
#useitb4uloseit