How the ICTY Transformed the Treatment of this “Inevitable Consequence of War”
By Brianna Wagner
Brianna Wagner is a third-year student at Albany Law School from Troy, New York. She graduated magna cum laude from Fordham University with a major in Political Science and a minor in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.
During her time at Albany Law, Brianna has served as both Secretary and Co-Chair of the Women’s Law Caucus, Teaching Assistant for Introduction to Lawyering I & II, and participated in the Donna Jo Morse Client Counseling Competition and the Domenick L. Gabrielli Appellate Advocacy Competition.
In her role as WLC Co-Chair, Brianna served as a student member of the Kate Stoneman Committee. In the 2023-24 academic year, she also served as an ex officio member of the Gender Fairness Committee of the Third Judicial District.
Brianna will be joining Hinman Straub as a first-year associate in the fall, pending her admission to the New York State Bar.
By Brianna Wagner
During her time at Albany Law, Brianna has served as both Secretary and Co-Chair of the Women’s Law Caucus, Teaching Assistant for Introduction to Lawyering I & II, and participated in the Donna Jo Morse Client Counseling Competition and the Domenick L. Gabrielli Appellate Advocacy Competition.
In her role as WLC Co-Chair, Brianna served as a student member of the Kate Stoneman Committee. In the 2023-24 academic year, she also served as an ex officio member of the Gender Fairness Committee of the Third Judicial District.
Brianna will be joining Hinman Straub as a first-year associate in the fall, pending her admission to the New York State Bar.
Richard Goldstone, the former Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, noted that “[m]en had written the laws of war in an age when rape was regarded as being no more than an inevitable consequence of war.”
In the aftermath of the Bosnian War, the ICTY was tasked with prosecuting the atrocities that occurred at the hands of the Serbian army. For the first time in international legal history, the tribunal departed from the idea that sexual assault is simply a byproduct of war and set a new precedent for how sexual violence should be prosecuted.
This paper examines how that tribunal permanently altered the way international law prosecutes gender-based violence, by including sexual violations in convictions of genocide, grave breaches, crimes against humanity, and violations of the laws and customs of war. Other international tribunals have used the ICTY as a template for prosecuting gender-based crimes and have continued developing the way international law addresses sexual violence.
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To read the paper, open HERE.
To read the paper, open HERE.
