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.

The Living Death: Prosecuting Rape as Torture Under International Law [The Presentation]

By Dana P. Stanton
Dana Stanton is a 2013 summa cum laude graduate of Albany Law School. She did her undergraduate work in chemical engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and she worked as an engineer for General Electric in the Operations Management Leadership Program.
During law school, Dana was an associate editor on the Albany Law Review, and she interned with the Domestic Violence Prosecution Hybrid Clinic and the Family Violence Litigation Clinic, as well as with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of New York and the New York State Office of the Attorney General's Environmental Protection Bureau.
Dana is now an associate at the law firm of McNamee, Lochner, Titus and Williams in Albany, NY.
This presentation was prepared for Professor Bonventre’s International Law of War and Crime Seminar. It is the companion to Ms. Stanton's paper of the same title that was published by ILS on Sept.16, 2013.

As was stated in the introduction to that companion paper:
The torture of men has traditionally been taken more seriously under international law than sexual violence against women.   As a consequence, wartime rape was not prosecuted in international tribunals until the late 1990s.
However, the physical and psychological harm to rape victims can be just as severe as the harm to torture victims. International tribunals have begun to bring rape within the realm of jus cogens norm by prosecuting rape as a form of torture.
This presentation outlines how rape was used as a weapon in war, why rape was not prosecuted as a war crime until recently, compares rape to torture, explores the sexual violence in Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the significance of jus cogens for international rape prosecutions.

(click to enlarge slides)

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For the entire presentation, open HERE.
(It is then best to Download [by clicking on File] and then Open the downloaded power-point presentation.)

The Living Death: Prosecuting Rape as Torture Under International Law

Dana P. Stanton is a 2013 summa cum laude graduate of Albany Law School. She did her undergraduate work in chemical engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and she worked as an engineer for General Electric in the Operations Management Leadership Program.
During law school, Dana was an associate editor on the Albany Law Review, and she interned with the Domestic Violence Prosecution Hybrid Clinic and the Family Violence Litigation Clinic, as well as with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of New York and the New York State Office of the Attorney General's Environmental Protection Bureau.
Dana is now an associate at the law firm of McNamee, Lochner, Titus and Williams in Albany, NY.
This paper was prepared for Professor Bonventre’s International Law of War and Crime Seminar.

The torture of men has traditionally been taken more seriously under international law than sexual violence against women.   As a consequence, wartime rape was not prosecuted in international tribunals until the late 1990s.
However, the physical and psychological harm to rape victims can be just as severe as the harm to torture victims. International tribunals have begun to bring rape within the realm of jus cogens norm by prosecuting rape as a form of torture.
Part I of the paper explains how rape was used as a weapon in war, and Part II discusses why rape was not prosecuted as a war crime until recently. Part III explains rape from the victims’ perspective and Part IV compares rape to torture. Parts V through VII explore the sexual violence in Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the jurisprudence arising therefrom. Finally, Part VIII discusses the significance of jus cogens for international rape prosecutions.

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To read the paper, open HERE.

Rape in War [the paper]

By Julia Steciuk
Julia Steciuk prepared this paper for the International Law of War and Crime Seminar, summer 2012, in conjunction with the associated presentation which was previously published on ILS.
As noted then, Julia Steciuk, a second year student at Albany Law School, studied English as an undergraduate at Siena College. During her first year at Albany Law, Julia became Co-Director of Albany Law’s Animal Pro Bono Project, as well as President of the school’s Animal Legal Defense Fund chapter. Julia is a Research Assistant for Professor Vincent M. Bonventre, as well as an Associate Editor for the Center for Judicial Process. She spent her summer interning with the Albany County District Attorney’s Office.

Where there is war there is rape. Throughout history, rape has been used as a tool for a variety of purposes during war. However, it was not until after World War II that rape within the context of war gained the attention of the international legal community and when developments began to be made towards improving the abilities of prosecutors to charge and try rape offenders in the context of war.

Part I of this paper discusses the prosecution of rape in war within the context of the Nuremburg and Tokyo Trials. Part II examines developments in international law towards an increased recognition for victims of rape during such national trials. Parts III and IV discuss how these improvements have been implemented during the Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the Tribunal for Rwanda, while also examining drawbacks that occurred for the prosecution of rape. Part V discusses further developments and limitations in prosecution of rape in war and Part VI concludes this work.
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To read the paper, open HERE.

Rape in War [presentation]

By Julia Steciuk
Julia Steciuk, a second year student at Albany Law School, studied English as an undergraduate at Siena College. During her first year at Albany Law, Julia became Co-Director of Albany Law’s Animal Pro Bono Project, as well as President of the school’s Animal Legal Defense Fund chapter. Julia is a Research Assistant for Professor Vincent M. Bonventre, as well as an Associate Editor for the Center for Judicial Process. She spent her summer interning with the Albany County District Attorney’s Office.
She prepared this presentation for the International Law of War and Crime Seminar, summer 2012. (Her associated paper is forthcoming on ILS.)

(click to enlarge on all slides)

 

 

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For the entire presentation, open HERE.
(It is then best to download the presentation and view it from there.)