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

Considerable Contribution ◽

Critical Step ◽

Long Period ◽

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.

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

AJIL Unbound ◽

10.1017/s2398772300009053 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 110 ◽

pp. 214-219

Author(s):

Kelly-Jo Bluen

Keyword(s):

Sexual Violence ◽

Criminal Law ◽

International Criminal ◽

Critical Role ◽

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.

International Criminal Law as a Spotlight and Black Holes as Constituents of Legacy

AJIL Unbound ◽

10.1017/s2398772300009041 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 110 ◽

pp. 209-213 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Larissa van den Herik

Keyword(s):

Black Holes ◽

Criminal Law ◽

International Criminal ◽

One Step ◽

Overall Performance ◽

Fair Balance

This contribution engages with Sara Kendall’s and Sarah Nouwen’s article on the legacy of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and their call for an ethos of institutional modesty. I much support the nuanced approach that underlies their call and I see it as a prerequisite to properly and adequately appreciate the ICTR’s past existence and operation. I would even be open to moving one step further in the direction of an ethos of sobriety. Rather than seizing the momentum to celebrate accomplishments and highlight milestones, legacy-talk and legacy-construction of international criminal tribunals should entail a form of reckoning. Indeed, as suggested by Kendall and Nouwen, the “justices not done” and the “justices pending” must be part and parcel of the ICTR’s legacy-constructions so as to offer a fair balance and to capture the ICTR’s overall performance, explicitly accounting for results as well as omissions.

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

International Criminal Law Review ◽

10.1163/15718123-01805003 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 18 (5) ◽

pp. 853-882

Author(s):

Maike Isaac ◽

Olga Jurasz

Keyword(s):

Sexual Violence ◽

Criminal Law ◽

International Criminal ◽

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 Good Deeds of International Criminal Defendants

Leiden Journal of International Law ◽

10.1017/s0922156512000398 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 25 (3) ◽

pp. 799-813 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

JEAN GALBRAITH

Keyword(s):

Criminal Law ◽

International Criminal ◽

War Crimes ◽

The Other ◽

Former Yugoslavia ◽

Crimes Against Humanity ◽

Good Deeds

AbstractInternational criminal tribunals try defendants for horrific acts: genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. At sentencing, however, evidence often arises of what I will call defendants’ ‘good deeds’ – humanitarian behaviour by the defendants towards those on the other side of the conflict that is conscientious relative to the culture in which the defendants are operating. This article examines the treatment of good deeds in the sentencing practices of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. I show that the tribunals’ approaches are both undertheorized and internally inconsistent. I argue that the tribunals should draw upon the goals that underlie international criminal law in developing a coherent approach to considering good deeds for sentencing purposes.

The Main Characteristics of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia During its Mandate from 1993 to 2017

SEEU Review ◽

10.2478/seeur-2019-0006 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 14 (1) ◽

pp. 91-116

Author(s):

Viona Rashica

Keyword(s):

United Nations ◽

Security Council ◽

Criminal Law ◽

Ad Hoc ◽

International Criminal ◽

The Other ◽

Former Yugoslavia ◽

International Criminal Tribunals

Abstract The tradition of international criminal tribunals which started with the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals was returned with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. As a result of the bloody wars in the territory of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the Security Council of the United Nations decided to establish the ICTY as an ad hoc tribunal, that was approved by the resolutions 808 and 827. The main purpose of the paper is to highlight the features of the ICTY during its mandate from 1993 to 2017. For the realization of this research are used qualitative methods, based on the bibliography that is related with international criminal law, with special emphasis with the activities of international criminal tribunals. Furthermore, some data are also collected from the credible internet sources, which have valuable information about the procedures of the ICTY and for the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals. The results of the study demonstrate that during its mandate, the ICTY was accompanied with a lot of successes which distinguish it from the other international criminal tribunals. At the same time, the ICTY has also a lot of failures, which have come as a result of various political influences within it. The conclusions of this paper aim to increase knowledge about the activity of the ICTY, by offering important information for its establishment and organs, and for its main successes and failures.

Crimes of Sexual Violence within International Criminal Law: A Historical Outline

Journal of Politics and Law ◽

10.5539/jpl.v14n1p1 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 14 (1) ◽

pp. 1

Author(s):

Miranda Das ◽

Sukhdev Singh

Keyword(s):

Sexual Violence ◽

Criminal Law ◽

Armed Conflict ◽

International Criminal ◽

Criminal Court ◽

Critical Examination ◽

Sexual Crimes ◽

Historical Outline

This article will provide a synoptic historical outline of international criminal law (ICL) from a gender perspective. An effort is made to highlight the landmark stages in the evolution of the ICL, particularly in its treatment of rape and other sexual crimes perpetrated against women during armed conflict. For this purpose, a critical examination of Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals, criminal tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda as well as Special Court for Sierra Leone, and the International Criminal Court is attempted. Endeavour is to outline the gender and sexual crimes jurisprudence developed by the above mentioned international criminal tribunals as well as courts, and then to examine its effectiveness in prosecuting crimes of rape and sexual violence carried out against women. An analysis of what might have gone wrong within the ICL in dealing with rape and crimes of sexual nature is also attempted.

The International Criminal Court: Promise and Politics

Proceedings of the ASIL Annual Meeting ◽

10.5305/procannmeetasil.109.2015.0269 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 109 ◽

pp. 269-272

Author(s):

Makau Mutua

Keyword(s):

Civil Society ◽

Criminal Law ◽

International Criminal Court ◽

Rome Statute ◽

Ad Hoc ◽

International Criminal ◽

Criminal Court ◽

International Criminal Tribunals

The International Criminal Court (ICC or Court) is an institution born of necessity after a long and arduous process of many false starts. The struggle to establish a permanent international criminal tribunal stretches back to Nuremberg. The dream, which was especially poignant for the international criminal law community, for a permanent international criminal tribunal was realized with the adoption in 1998 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The treaty entered into force in 2002. Those were heady days for advocates and scholars concerned with curtailing impunity. No one was more ecstatic about the realization of the ICC than civil society actors across the globe, and particularly in Africa, where impunity has been an endemic problem. Victims who had never received justice at home saw an opportunity for vindication abroad. This optimism in the ICC was partially driven by the successes, however mixed, of two prior ad hoc international criminal tribunals—the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

Liberal international criminal law and legal memory: deconstructing the production of witness memories at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

Journal of the British Academy ◽

10.5871/jba/009s2.127 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9s2 ◽

pp. 127-154

Author(s):

Benjamin Thorne

Keyword(s):

Collective Memory ◽

Criminal Law ◽

Transitional Justice ◽

International Criminal ◽

Primary Response ◽

Giorgio Agamben ◽

Legal Scholarship ◽

International Criminal Tribunals

International criminal tribunals and courts, such as the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), are commonly understood within legal transitional justice scholarship as the primary response to mass human rights violations, not only in addressing impunity, but also in uncovering the truth of what happened and why. This conceptually orientated article aims to deconstruct legal witnessing and memory production at the ICTR in order to critique claims in legal scholarship that international criminal institutions are able to produce a collective memory of mass rights violations. Specifically, the article proposes an original conceptual framework using insights from critical theory, Giorgio Agamben (witness) and Paul Ricoeur (memory), which it is argued extends our understanding of the scope, and limitations, of liberal Western criminal institutions� (in)ability to make sense of past atrocities.

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

Identity and Diversity on the International Bench ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198870753.003.0017 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 355-365 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Teresa Doherty

Keyword(s):

Sexual Violence ◽

Sierra Leone ◽

Criminal Law ◽

International Criminal ◽

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.

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

The American Journal of International Law ◽

10.2307/3396669 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 99 (4) ◽

pp. 778-816 ◽

Cited By ~ 74

Author(s):

Karen Engle

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Sexual Violence ◽

Violence Against Women ◽

Bosnia And Herzegovina ◽

Criminal Law ◽

International Criminal ◽

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.”