International Prosecution of Gender-Based Violence

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. 

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.

Suffering in Silence: The Nuremberg Failure to Prosecute Sex Crimes

By Jessica Phillips

Jessica Phillips is a May 2023 magna cum laude graduate of Albany Law School. Prior to law school, Jessica graduated summa cum laude from the University at Albany with a Bachelor of Science in human development.

As a first-year student at Albany Law, Jessica served as a Research Assistant to Dean Rosemary Queenan, exploring access to Free and Appropriate Public Education for children with disabilities. In her second year, Jessica was elected to serve as the Treasurer for Albany Law School’s Family Law Society, a position she held through her third year.

In addition to her law school extracurriculars and interests, Jessica was appointed to the New York State Bar Association’s Committee on Children & the Law.

Following the bar exam, Jessica will be joining Copps DiPaola Silverman, PLLC as an associate on the matrimonial and family law litigation team.

Utilizing rape as a weapon of war is by no means a recent phenomenon. For as long as conflict has existed, so too has rape.

Sexual violence has been used consistently throughout history, originally stemming from the belief that women were property. Rape was viewed as a "legitimate spoil of war," an "inevitable consequence of war and a way to boost soldier morale," and even as a "mark of victory, proof of soldiers’ masculinity and success, and compensation for service.” If history has revealed anything, it is just how interconnected war and rape are.

However perpetual and present it has been, rape as a weapon of war has been ignored and overlooked, together with the survivors and victims of these atrocious crimes. Today, numerous international statutes explicitly prohibit rape and other forms of sexual violence during international and domestic conflicts. This was not always the case, however, and progress in this area has been painstakingly slow.

It was not until the 1990s, at the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, that rape and other sexual crimes against women and girls were explicitly prohibited, recognized, and prosecuted by the international community. Up to this point, and during the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg in 1945 – 1946, the victims and survivors of rape during war suffered in silence, without recognition of or justice for the vile acts they endured. 

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To read the paper, open HERE.

International Criminalization of Sexual Violence and Gender-Based War Crimes

By Joseph T. Pidel

Joseph T. Pidel graduated from Albany Law School with the class of 2021 and is currently practicing law in New York State. Throughout law school, Joseph served in numerous student organization roles, including serving as the Executive Director of the Anthony V. Cardona ’70 Moot Court Program and as the Albany County Bar Association Student Representative of the Student Bar Association.

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