By Joseph T. Pidel
Pursuant to his broad legal interests, Joseph obtained multiple legal internship opportunities during law school, including his work for the Hon. Christine M. Clark, the Special Victims Unit of the Albany County District Attorney’s Office, the Litigation Bureau of the New York State Attorney General’s Office, and his time as a law clerk for Dreyer Boyajian, LLP.
Joseph wrote this paper for Professor Vincent Bonventre’s International Law of War and Crime class.
For many years, gender-based violence was often considered an inevitable consequence of war. However, the world has slowly begun to recognize gender-based violence as a war crime. While steps have been taken to hold individuals accountable for gender-based violence, such acts are still not held to the same standard as other war crimes, such as murder.
Many individuals are unaware of how sexual and gender-based violence is punished globally. The goals of this paper are to assist individuals in generally understanding the issue of sexual and gender-based violence and to provide insight into how the international legal system can better protect victims of such violence and prevent such violence in the future. By increasing public awareness of this issue, political leaders will be more inclined to advocate for policies that further this paper's overall goal of mitigating the occurrence of sexual and gender-based war crimes.
Pursuant to accomplishing these goals, this paper will discuss the definition of sexual and gender-based violence, the laws that govern sexual and gender-based violence, the historical treatment of sexual and gender-based violence, and the progress made in addressing sexual and gender-based crimes.
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To read the paper, open HERE
