Feminism and Its (DIS)contents: Criminalizing Wartime Rape in Bosnia and Herzegovina

2005 ◽  
Vol 99 (4) ◽  
pp. 778-816 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Engle
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Violence Against Women ◽  
Bosnia And Herzegovina ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Legal Argumentation ◽  
Concerted Effort

Today many feminists seem relatively content with the treatment of rape and other sexual violence against women under international criminal law. In the context of the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the early 1990s, feminist activists made a concerted effort to affect the statute establishing the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the rules of evidence under which rape and other crimes of sexual violence would be prosecuted, the form the indictments of crimes of sexual violence would take, and the strategies and legal argumentation made at both the trial and the appellate levels. For the most part, much to the surprise of many feminists themselves, they have been successful. As Joanne Barkan comments: “From the start, most observers considered the [ICTY] a sop to human rights and feminist activists who wanted intervention.... Almost no one expected it to succeed. And yet to some extent, at least for women, it did.”

scholarly journals Globalizing Justice, Homogenizing Sexual Violence: The Legacy of the ICTY and ICTR in terms of Sexual Violence

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 110 ◽  
pp. 214-219
Author(s):  
Kelly-Jo Bluen
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The One

In their contribution to the AJIL Symposium, Robinson and MacNeil remark that a prolific legacy of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) is that “it is now commonsense that rape is and must be a war crime.” This line distills the complexity of the legacies of the tribunals regarding sexual and gender-based violence. On the one hand, it articulates the critical role of the tribunals in cementing the idea that sexual violence, hitherto largely relegated to indifference in international criminal law and policy frameworks, is worthy of international attention. Simultaneously, it encapsulates the ways in which the tribunals’ jurisprudence has been received globally to narrate a narrow conception of conflict-related sexual violence as a “weapon of war” or committed as part of “strategic” conflict-related goals. In fact, there is little that constitutes common sense about sexual violence in conflict, nor is it always, or even most predominantly, committed as a war crime, crime against humanity,or in pursuit of genocide as envisaged by international criminal law. Various studies suggest that sexual violence in war takes many forms and causalities with differentiation across and within conflict contexts.

scholarly journals Towards an Intersectional Understanding of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence: Gender, Sexuality, and Ethnicity at the ICTY

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (5) ◽  
pp. 853-882
Author(s):  
Maike Isaac ◽  
Olga Jurasz
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Male Victims ◽  
Cultural Dynamics ◽  
The Past ◽  
Yugoslav Wars ◽  
Gender Based

In the past 25 years, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has contributed significantly to a more sophisticated understanding of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) in international criminal law. The ICTY’s jurisprudence has broken new ground in relation to the prosecution of CRSV, but also has brought to light the multifaceted challenges associated with the prosecution of such crimes at an international level. Whilst cases heard by the ICTY have addressed both CRSV committed against women and men, there exist significant differences in the ways in which the ICTY has approached the experiences of male victims of sexual violence during the Yugoslav Wars. We therefore analyse the extent to and ways in which the ICTY has fostered the understanding of CRSV as gender-based violence that is embedded into the socio-cultural dynamics of the community within which the violence occurs.

The Crimes of Sexual Violence in the Jurisprudence of International Criminal Tribunals

2019 ◽  
pp. 19-56
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Considerable Contribution ◽  
Critical Step ◽  
Long Period ◽  
International Criminal Tribunals ◽  
Current Shift

This chapter concerns itself with strides made in defining and conceptualising sexual violence as crimes in international criminal law. The analysis presented in this chapter demonstrates that, after a long period of neglect of these crimes, wartime sexual violence appears to have gained recognition and firmly established as crimes in international criminal law. The author evidences the considerable contribution of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) to the current shift in thinking of international law regarding conflict-related sexual violence. Significantly, the author argues that the explicit criminalisation of different forms of sexual violence by the Rome Statute is a critical step forward in this regard. However, the analysis finally highlights continuing challenges in the prosecution of these crimes before international criminal tribunals.

The Contribution of Women Judges and Prosecutors to the Development of International Criminal Law

2020 ◽  
pp. 355-365 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teresa Doherty
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
International Courts ◽  
Women Judges ◽  
Broad Interpretation ◽  
Active Contribution

Few female judges were appointed to the benches of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), and Special Court for Sierra Leone. Nevertheless, those appointments resulted in an active contribution of these women judges to the development of international criminal law, as is shown in the jurisprudence. Judges give judgement on the evidence, facts, and law before them, but women judges have been noted for advancing the existing law through broad interpretation. With the appointment of women investigators and prosecutors, more prosecutions for crimes of sexual violence followed. This is important as it progressively developed a field of law that had until then not, or only in a more limited manner, been adjudicated upon before international courts.

A Conversation with Antonio Cassese

2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 815-827
Author(s):  
GUIDO ACQUAVIVA
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Original Material ◽  
Professional Career

AbstractThis ‘interview’, prepared posthumously with original material from Judge Antonio Cassese, traces the origins of his academic and professional career. It further attempts to shed some light on Antonio Cassese's multifaceted contributions to the fields of human rights, self-determination, and international criminal law. In particular, it attempts to show in his own words the passion and rigour with which Judge Cassese approached the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) as well as its seminal first steps, which marked a resurgence of international criminal justice and paved the way for a host of contemporary international criminal institutions.

scholarly journals Nullum Crimen and International Criminal Law: The Relevance of the Foreseeability Test

2015 ◽  
Vol 84 (3) ◽  
pp. 515-531
Author(s):  
Harmen van der Wilt
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
International Crimes ◽  
European Court ◽  
Starting Point

This article traces the development of the foreseeability test in the context of the nullum crimen principle. While the European Court of Human Rights has introduced the ‘accessibility and foreseeability’ criteria long ago in the Sunday Times case, the Court has only recently started to apply this standard with respect to international crimes. In the Kononov case, judges of the European Court of Human Rights exhibited strongly divergent opinions on the question whether the punishment of alleged war crimes that had been committed in 1944 violated the nullum crimen principle. According to this author, the dissension of the judges demonstrates the lack of objective foreseeability, which should have served as a starting point for the assessment of the subjective foreseeability and a – potentially exculpating – mistake of law of the perpetrator. The Court should therefore have concluded that the nullum crimen principle had been violated.

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