International Law

Citation:

Bennoune, Karima. 2006. “Do We Need New International Law to Protect Women in Armed Conflict?” Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law 38: 363.

Author: Karima Bennoune

Topics: Armed Conflict, Gender, Women, International Law

Year: 2006

Citation:

Bedont, Barbara, and Katherine Hall-Martinez. 1999. “Ending Impunity for Gender Crimes under the International Criminal Court.” Brown Journal of World Affairs 6 (1): 65–85.

Authors: Barbara Bedont, Katherine Hall-Martinez

Topics: Gender, Gender-Based Violence, International Law, International Criminal Law, Justice, International Tribunals & Special Courts

Year: 1999

Citation:

Askin, Kelly Dawn. 2005. “Gender Crimes Jurisprudence in the ICTR: Positive Developments.” Journal of International Criminal Justice 3 (4): 1007–18.

Author: Kelly D. Askin

Abstract:

Considering the magnitude of rape and other sexual crimes perpetrated during the Rwandan genocide, gender crimes prosecutions at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) have been inadequate so far. Nonetheless, the ICTR case law must be commended for the impulse given, with and after Akayesu, to the criminalization and punishment of gender-related violence. This paper points to the achievements of the ICTR case law in this respect.

Topics: Gender, Gender-Based Violence, Genocide, International Law, International Criminal Law, Justice, International Tribunals & Special Courts, Sexual Violence, Rape Regions: Africa, Central Africa, East Africa Countries: Rwanda

Year: 2005

Citation:

Barrow, Amy. 2010. "UN Security Council Resolutions 1325 and 1820: Constructing Gender in Armed Conflict and International Humanitarian Law." International Review of the Red Cross 92 (877): 221-34.

Author: Amy Barrow

Abstract:

While the Geneva Conventions contain gender-specific provisions, the reality of women's and men's experiences of armed conflict have highlighted gender limitations and conceptual constraints within international humanitarian law. Judgements at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) ad hoc tribunals have gone some way towards expanding the scope of definitions of sexual violence and rape in conflict. More recent developments in public international law, including the adoption of Security Council Resolutions 1325 and 1820 focused on women, peace and security, have sought to increase the visibility of gender in situations of armed conflict. This paper highlights important developing norms on women, peace and security. Although these norms are significant, they may not be radical enough to expand constructions of gender within international humanitarian law. This leaves existing provisions open to continued scrutiny.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Gender, International Law, International Humanitarian Law (IHL), UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325, UNSCR 1820, Sexual Violence, Rape Regions: Africa, Central Africa, East Africa, Europe, Balkans Countries: Rwanda, Yugoslavia (former)

Year: 2010

Citation:

Ashkin, Kelly D. 1999. “Commentary: The International War Crimes Trial of Anto Furundžija: Major Progress Toward Ending the Cycle of Impunity for Rape Crimes.” Leiden Journal of International Law 12 (4): 935–55. doi:10.1017/S0922156599000485.

Author: Kelly D. Ashkin

Abstract:

This article reviews and analyzes the Furundžija Judgment rendered by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the first international war crimes trial in history to focus virtually exclusively on rape. The judgment addresses what acts constitute rape, whether a non-physical perpetrator can be held individually criminally responsible for rape, and whether rape can constitute torture; it also broadens the purview of Common Article 3 crimes and considers acts which may constitute outrages upon personal dignity. This article discusses how these issues impact upon both international humanitarian law generally and gender jurisprudence specifically.

Topics: Gender, International Law, International Criminal Law, Justice, International Tribunals & Special Courts, War Crimes, Sexual Violence, Rape Regions: Europe, Balkans Countries: Yugoslavia (former)

Year: 1999

Citation:

Ahmed, Afreen R. 2004. “The Shame of Hwang v. Japan: How the International Community Has Failed Asia's 'Comfort Women.'” Texas Journal of Women & the Law 14 (1): 1-121.

Author: Afreen R. Ahmed

Abstract:

In 1897, the Japanese intellectual Uchimura Kanzo wrote in an essay entitled "National Repentance," but it was not until 1937 that Japan began greatly expanding its officially sanctioned and closely regulated "comfort system" for the sexual gratification of the Japanese soldiers as they waged war throughout East Asia and the Pacific. The states parties to the treaty included some whose nationals had been enslaved as "comfort women" - Indonesia, the Netherlands, and the Philippines - but the treaty contained no mention of the victims of rape, forced prostitution, or sexual slavery. Japan has argued that during the war, neither slavery nor wartime rape was proscribed by conventional or customary international law. The sexual enslavement of the "comfort women" during World War II was, without a doubt, a violation of the customary international law regarding slavery and slavery-like practices. Documents subsequent to Hague IV confirm that rape and forced prostitution were considered violations of the customary international law of war. On the one hand, both Japanese and Allied military cultures regarded rape as an acceptable side effect of war; on the other hand, the post-war Asian cultures regarded the rape victim as socially unacceptable, partly to blame for her victimization, and nothing more than a source of shame.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Gender, Women, International Law, Livelihoods, Sexual Livelihoods, Sexual Violence, Rape, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, Sexual Slavery, SV against Women Regions: Asia, East Asia Countries: Japan

Year: 2004

Citation:

Weissman, Deborah M. 2004. “The Human Rights Dilemma: Rethinking the Humanitarian Project.” Columbia Human Rights Law Review 35 (April): 259–336.

Author: Deborah M. Weissman

Abstract:

This Article provides an interpretive account of the human rights discourse at a time when the U.S. legal community is deepening its relationship with these issues. It maps the context of the human rights project over the past one hundred years, with a critical eye and as a cautionary tale. It reviews the historical circumstances and the ideological framework in which human rights have been appropriated as an instrument of national policy, often to the detriment of humanitarian objectives. It considers the role of law, not only as an instrument by which colonial rule was maintained but as a system that has claimed center stage in the human rights project, often producing outcomes inimical to human rights.

It demonstrates that the disparity in power between colonizer and colonized continues to affect the ongoing development of human rights norms and has resulted in the production of legal remedies that are often incapable of safeguarding international human rights. It uses comparative legal discourse as a way to illustrate how the human rights project stipulates the need to rescue people of other cultures from themselves. The Article argues for a shift in methodological and attitudinal approaches to human rights work and suggests that commitment to human rights must be guided by an awareness of the power relationships from which remedies originate. It contends that without such awareness, humanitarian enterprises may inadvertently result in baneful consequences and implicate the human rights project in the very wrongs it seeks to correct.

Topics: Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Gender, Women, Humanitarian Assistance, International Law, International Human Rights, International Organizations, Rights, Human Rights Regions: Americas, North America Countries: United States of America

Year: 2004

Citation:

Aydelott, Danise. 1993. “Mass Rape During War: Prosecuting Bosnian Rapists Under International Law.” Emory International Law Review 7: 585-631.

Author: Danise Aydelott

Abstract:

The author reviews the history of mass rape during war and the international legal provisions that can be invoked to punish the perpetrators. Part I evaluates the historical acceptance of rape as a by-product of war. Part II discusses mass rape as a weapon of genocide in Bosnia. Part III evaluates existing methods of international law that can be used to punish the violators. Part IV describes the statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) designed to prosecute Balkan criminals. Part V examines the reasons why the situation in Bosnia provides a particularly strong case for prosecuting rape as a war crime. Part VI concludes that existing substantive international law is sufficient to punish the perpetrators, and comments on the need to address procedural problems inherent in punishing rapists as war criminals, rather than pushing to have rape declared a "war crime."

Topics: Armed Conflict, Ethnic/Communal Wars, Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Genocide, International Law, International Criminal Law, Justice, International Tribunals & Special Courts, Sexual Violence, Rape Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina, Yugoslavia (former)

Year: 1993

Citation:

Viseus, Patricia. 2002. “International Crimes Against Women - Sexual Violence and Peremptory Norms: The Legal Value of Rape.” Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law 34 (3): 287-303.

Author: Patricia Viseus

Abstract:

This lecture was delivered by the Legal Adviser for Gender Related Crimes and Trial Attorney, Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Rwanda (ICTR) at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law on March 2, 2002. The lecture addresses whether sexual violence is a peremptory norm under international law. It inquires just how high up the legal hierarchy rape has traveled, and more specifically, what the legal value that international law attaches to the act of rape is now considered to be.

Topics: Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, International Law, Justice, International Tribunals & Special Courts, Sexual Violence, Rape Regions: Africa, Central Africa, East Africa, Europe, Balkans Countries: Rwanda, Yugoslavia (former)

Year: 2002

Citation:

Kalajdzic, Jasminka. 1995. “Rape, Representation, and Rights: Permeating International Law with the Voices of Women.” Queen’s Law Journal 21: 457.

Author: Jasminka Kalajdzic

Abstract:

The mass rapes of Bosnian women by Serb soldiers were a tool of war specifically used to systematically drive away women and their communities. This paper examines that phenomenon in light of representations of rape in current literature and the effort to develop a feminist understanding of rape. It considers the feminist debate over whether the mass rapes in Bosnia should be seen as a crime perpetrated against the women as female individuals or against the Bosnian community. The foundation for this examination is  adiscussion of three normative conceptions which affect international treatment of rape as a war crime - rape as part of the game of war, as an attack on community, and as terrorization and retailiation. The author then documents the exclusion of any conclusive mention of rape from the Hague Conventions (1907) and discusses the repercussions of its eventual definition in the later Geneva Conventions (1949). Finally, the author calls for gender-sensitive approaches to humanitarian assistance, for sensitive treatment of rape survivors, and for the injection of a female voice into humanitarian law.

Keywords: International Humanitarian Law, rape, Bosnia

Topics: Gender, Women, International Law, Rights, Women's Rights, Sexual Violence, Rape

Year: 1995