International Criminal Law as a Site for Enhancing Women's Rights? Challenges, Possibilities, Strategies (original) (raw)
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Performing Legal Order: Some Feminist oughts on International Criminal Law
is article argues that international criminal law, like its domestic counterpart, is a contradictory site for feminist activism. While it off ers some important tools for recognising, naming and giving legal credence to the realities of women's lives in times of confl ict, international criminal law is also a limited and limiting arena for feminist-inspired social change. My objective in this article is to highlight some of these limitations, not to counsel against continuing feminist activism, but to start a conversation about some of the costs, risks and implications for feminist strategy in continuing to work within the structures of international criminal law. It is now widely recognised that the international criminal prosecution of war crimes – notably at the Yugoslav and Rwanda Tribunals and the Special Court for Sierra Leone – has made historic progress in recognising and condemning sexual violence crimes against women. e knock-on eff ects of those prosecutions are also well known: incorporation of sexual violence crimes into the International Criminal Court statute, increased media attention to large-scale sexual violence in confl ict zones, increased political attention to sexual violence crimes, notably at the United Nations Security Council, targeting of service delivery in confl ict zones to sexual violence victims, and so on. While these developments are far from perfect, they are historic departures from the international legal and political silence on wartime sexual violence that characterised most of the twentieth-century.
Engendering justice: women and the prosecution of sexual violence in international criminal courts
International Feminist Journal of Politics, 2019
Does the participation of women in international criminal courts enhance the provision of gender justice? Scant scholarly attention has been paid to women as prosecutors, despite the pivotal role that prosecutors play in determining who is charged and what charges they face. In this article, we explore the influence of women in the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) in international criminal courts. First, we examine the relationship between the presence of women on prosecutorial teams and sexual violence charges that are brought forth at trial. Next, we move beyond the influence of women prosecutors on indictments to consider how their presence is shaped by the internal dynamics of the institutions. We point to the culture of trial teams, the processes of investigations, and internal hierarchies to demonstrate how informal practices and gendered norms affect women's positionality within the OTPs and their ability to provide gender justice.
Since the first reports on gender-based crimes committed during the Yugoslav dissolution war of 1992-1995 and the Rwandan genocidal war between April and July 1994, feminist legal scholars have produced hundreds of scholarly and journalistic works on rape and other forms of sexual violence committed either in peacetime or in conflict situations. New to this body of scholarly literature addressing the legal treatment of rape in the statutory laws of international criminal tribunals, in international and regional human rights treaties, and in a wide range of different domestic penal laws, is this thought-provoking work, edited by Clare McGlynn, professor of law at Durham University, and Vanessa E. Munro, professor of socio-legal studies at the University of Nottingham. The work under review started life as a collection of papers submitted to an international conference marking the 10th anniversary of the landmark judgement of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in the case of Jean-Paul Akayesu, where he was convicted, inter alia, for rape as an act of genocide. This milestone judgement constituted a triumph for feminist legal scholars and activists. It was also a turning point for the international justice system, in general, and for the jurisprudence of the international criminal tribunals, in particular. The editors maintain in their introduction that the aim of this work is to provide the reader with a cross-cultural perspective and a critical evaluation of the latest developments in rape laws embodied in the statutory laws of international, regional, and domestic judicial bodies. Comprised of 22 concise chapters, the work is arranged thematically under four corresponding principal ideas: the theoretical complexities of responding to the wrongs of rape; the relationship between feminist activism and legal reform; the limits of law reform in bringing about social change; and finally, the secondary victimization of rape complainants during the criminal investigation and trial process. Moreover, the editors provide in their introduction a meticulous analysis of these themes and underline the need for a progressive reform of rape law, including reconceptualizing and criminalizing rape in international and domestic laws. Examining feminists’ debates and struggles at the national, regional, and international levels to protect victims and ensure their right to sexual and bodily integrity, they elucidate feminists’ responses to the wrongs of rape, their struggle for legal reform within international and national legal systems, and the challenges that prevent law reform from bringing about real changes. Overall, this book constitutes essential reading in view of its examination of the provisions of domestic and international criminal laws and for its exploration of the similarities and variances between rape in time of peace and in wartime settings. Moreover, by analysing and investigating different fundamental concepts in rape law, it brings together divergent perspectives of leading legal scholars from across the world on international criminal law, international human rights law, and domestic criminal justice systems, thereby moving the rape law reform agenda forward and ensuring appropriate justice for both victims and perpetrators. It is a remarkable, comprehensive work that should be read by legal scholars, jurists, actors in the criminal justice system, law students at all levels, and by those looking to deepen their understanding of the multiple tensions inherent in the shifting legal landscape of rape crime.
Asian Journal of International Law, 2022
In March 2016, the International Criminal Court (icc) rendered a guilty verdict against Jean-Pierre Bemba, ex-president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, for his involvement in operations in the Central African Republic from 2002 to 2004. He was found guilty in his capacity as military commander of crimes against humanity and war crimes. The decision is the first by the icc to address sexual violence as a weapon of war and in the context of command responsibility. This article assesses the Bemba decision from a feminist perspective. Key normative developments have occurred in the substantive international criminal law surrounding sexual violence, and the guilty verdict against Jean-Pierre Bemba represents an effective implementation of international criminal law. However, in light of major feminist concerns that arise in international law on sexual violence, the encouraging developments in the judgement occur mostly at the implementation level, leaving much to be done in terms of gender conceptualization and norm-setting. Keywords sexual violence-international criminal law-feminist perspectives-Bemba case-International Criminal Court (icc)-war crimes-crimes against humanity-rape On 21 March, the International Criminal Court (icc) rendered a guilty verdict against Jean-Pierre Bemba, ex-president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, for his involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Central African Republic during a 2002-2004 operation. He was found guilty
International Criminal Law Review, 2017
In March 2016, the International Criminal Court (icc) rendered a guilty verdict against Jean-Pierre Bemba, ex-president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, for his involvement in operations in the Central African Republic from 2002 to 2004. He was found guilty in his capacity as military commander of crimes against humanity and war crimes. The decision is the first by the icc to address sexual violence as a weapon of war and in the context of command responsibility. This article assesses the Bemba decision from a feminist perspective. Key normative developments have occurred in the substantive international criminal law surrounding sexual violence, and the guilty verdict against Jean-Pierre Bemba represents an effective implementation of international criminal law. However, in light of major feminist concerns that arise in international law on sexual violence, the encouraging developments in the judgement occur mostly at the implementation level, leaving much to be done in terms of gender conceptualization and norm-setting. Keywords sexual violence-international criminal law-feminist perspectives-Bemba case-International Criminal Court (icc)-war crimes-crimes against humanity-rape On 21 March, the International Criminal Court (icc) rendered a guilty verdict against Jean-Pierre Bemba, ex-president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, for his involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Central African Republic during a 2002-2004 operation. He was found guilty
Feminist Perspectives on the International Prosecution of Conflict-related Gender-based Crimes
Journal of International Criminal Justice, 2022
Feminist legal scholars played a prominent role in surfacing gender-based crimes and developing the international criminal justice system in the last three decades, from as early as the first horrific reports of the systematic mass rape of mainly Bosnian Muslim women throughout the Yugoslav dissolution war of 1992–1995. Due to the failure of the international criminal tribunals and courts to adequately prosecute wartime rape and other forms of sexual violence in the past three decades, gender-based crimes were inflicted on a massive scale as an integral part of ethnic and civil armed conflicts, by both enemies and supporters, in Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Sierra Leone, and other countries recently torn by sectarianism and civil war, particularly Libya and Syria. As a result of the rampant mass rape that prevailed in conflicts over the past three decades, international criminal law has witnessed unprecedented developments, including the emergence of several ad hoc international criminal courts (ICCs) and tribunals, as well as the establishment of the ICC. These prosecuted wartime rape and other forms of sexual violence, for the first time, as crimes of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Simultaneously, this period has witnessed the publication of substantial legal scholarship underlining these developments, including the books under review. The significance of these carefully selected books lies in their study of the above crimes from several doctrinal and methodological angles, which together constitute an in-depth analysis that answers many complex questions about what these crimes are, why they are committed, how to resist them, how to bring perpetrators to justice, as well as the obstacles to accountability that have helped perpetrators enjoy impunity.
2017
For centuries, rape and other forms of sexual violence have always been an integral aspect of warfare. Even so, it is rather recently that these practices have been recognized as crimes and prosecutions undertaken by international criminal tribunals. Whilst the ad hoc international tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda did not take an integrative approach to victims in the criminal justice process, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) took a victim-centred approach by setting out some provisions allowing victims to actively participate in proceedings beyond their traditional role of witnesses. This chapter sets out to critically examine the effectiveness of the ICC victims’ rights framework in achieving this objective in sexual violence cases. Drawing on the complex nature of experiences of victims of such crimes, this chapter engages with the various aspects of the relatively recent approach of victims’ participation in international criminal justice ...
Crimes of Sexual Violence within International Criminal Law: A Historical Outline
Journal of Programming Languages, 2020
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.