Chicago Journal of International Law genocide, all of which were, in the eyes of some states, too vague to be punishable under the Convention.131 The ICTR Appeals Chamber, however, rejected this interpretation as to incitement, perhaps because any concerns around vagueness had been addressed by a budding jurisprudence. The Court provided that a defendant can be complicit in direct and public incitement to commit genocide, notwithstanding its character as an inchoate crime.132 The Appeals Chamber’s reasoning is consistent with the view that the effective prevention of genocide requires curbing its earliest stages. In Nyiramasuhuko, the prosecution advanced the theory—before the ICTR Appeals Chamber—that defendant Joseph Kanyabashi had aided and abetted direct and public incitement to commit genocide.133 In that case, Prime Minister Kambanda and President Sindikubwabo delivered speeches which the prosecution argued to be incitements to genocide.134 Kanyabashi gave his own speech, in which he supported their message and pledged to execute the directives and instructions announced by Kambanda and Sindikubwabo.135 The ICTR Appeals Chamber ultimately rejected the prosecution’s argument, grounding its objection not in the impossibility of complicity in incitement but in its conclusion that defendant’s conduct did not meet the legal requirements for complicity in incitement.136 The ICTR Appeals Chamber noted incitement’s status as an inchoate crime, but nonetheless proceeded with a complicity in incitement analysis. Specifically, the Chamber held: As an inchoate crime, direct and public incitement to commit genocide is completed as soon as the discourse is uttered or published, even though the effects of incitement may extend in time, and is punishable even if no act of genocide has resulted therefrom. Accordingly, in order for Kanyabashi to be found responsible for aiding and abetting direct and public incitement to commit genocide, it would have to be established that he substantially contributed to Kambanda’s and Sindikubwabo’s inciting speeches themselves and not, as the Prosecution suggests, to the effects of their incitements by “reiterat[ing] and reinforce[ing] their message.”137 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 Prosecutor v. Akayesu, Case No. ICTR 96-4-T, Judgment, ¶ 527 (Sept. 2, 1998), http://perma.cc/ERW2-6RC7. Prosecutor v. Nyiramasuhuko, Case No. ICTR-98-42-A, Appeal Judgment, ¶¶ 3341–46 (Dec. 14, 2015), http://perma.cc/J94E-BURA. Id. at ¶ 3341. Id. Id. Id. at ¶ 3346. Id. at ¶ 3345. 102 Vol. 21 No. 1