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War crimes against women

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This volume, the first of a two-part series, presents an historical perspective on the development of international humanitarian law and the treatment of crimes against women in the Nuremberg and Tokyo War Crimes Tribunals. The Yugoslav conflict is discusses in detail, and arguments are presented as to why gender crimes must be, and how they can be, prosecuted in Yugoslav Tribunal. Violence against women – rape and all kinds of sexual assault – during armed conflicts is a practice which was known but ignored by human rights discourse and humanitarian law for many years. When states and ideals legitimize killing and other acts of violence, rape is seen as an unfortunate by-product. Therefore, it is common to think about sexual violence against women in armed conflicts as “coincidental”. However, normalizing rape and sexual assault contains the risk of permitting sexual violence and legitimizing its use as a weapon of war. This article will analyse the development and mechanisms of International Humanitarian Law, which is also known for the law of war, with a feminist perspective. It will be argued that International Humanitarian Law lacks effective measures to counter sexual violence. The violations of women’s human rights are mostly based on gender discrimination. Forms of discrimination and violations which disregard women’s human rights occur only because the victim is a woman (Bunch, 1990: 486). Although the necessity to establish a concrete and direct connection between human rights and women’s rights is ironic, the fact that gender inequality is the most urgent human rights problems proves that a self-evident fact (i.e. that women’s rights are human rights as women are human, too) can be easily overlooked within the circle of deep-rooted and maintained ideas and practices (Hawkins, 2012: 159). In this context, the women’s human rights movement has focused on human rights abuses caused by gender discrimination. These abuses women witness because of their gender have become the most outstanding and important matter which the movement had to deal with (Bunch, 1990: 487). The failure to perceive women’s rights as human rights maintains the misconception that women’s rights are of a lower status than “men’s” rights. In other words, detachment of “women’s rights” from men’s rights reflects and reinforces the tradition that their violation does not constitute a violation of the law. A major part of the argument underlying the feminist criticism of the human rights theory is that the criteria developed to define and measure the human rights violations is based on the male norm. In this case, it is necessary to develop a new human rights theory. To sum up, the feminist legal theory regards international human rights as something patriarchal, formal and hierarchical.

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Availability

KP.IV.00021	KP.IV.ASK w	My Library	Available
KP.IV.00021-01	KP.IV ASK w	My Library	Available

Detail Information

Series Title

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Call Number

KP,IV ASK w

Publisher

Belanda : Kluwer Law International., 1997

Collation

xviii, 455p ; 23 cm.

Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

9041104860

Classification

KP.IV

Content Type

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Media Type

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Carrier Type

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Edition

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Subject(s)

Perempuan - konflik
Perempuan - daerah konflik
Perempuan - perang

Specific Detail Info

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Statement of Responsibility

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