Prosecuting gender-based international crimes: An appraisal of the ad hoc tribunals’ jurisprudence

Abstract

This paper investigates the historical role of international criminal law in addressing human rights violations against women1 during armed conflict, as it obtained at Nuremberg in the 1940s through to the Yugoslavian and Rwandan conflicts in the 1990s. The extent, to which the ad hoc tribunals have contributed to holding individuals accountable for human rights violations of a sexual nature against women, is explored. This paper also defines rape and sexual violence as they obtain at international law, gives an overview of the evolution of the legal treatment of sexual violence, and evaluates the impact of the jurisprudence both from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), on gender-related crimes to the development of international law. A brief comparison is conducted of the gender legal provisions of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) with those of the Special Court of Sierra Leone (SCSL) Statute, especially insofar as the ICC seeks to improve the protection of witnesses and victims. The paper concludes by assessing the sufficiency or otherwise of the existing substantive and procedural international law safeguards in punishing perpetrators, taking into account the needs of the victims of gender-related crimes.