WOMEN, PEACE AND SECURITY RESOURCES: JUSTICE AND RECONCILIATION
Civil Society and NGO Reports, Papers and Statements | UN Documents | Government Statments and Reports | Books, Journals and Articles

UNIFEM WOMEN, WAR AND PEACE WEB PORTAL: JUSTICE

Civil Society and NGO Reports, Papers and Statements

Justice for Women: Seeking Accountability for Sexual Crimes in Post-Conflict Situations
Fundación para las Relaciones Internacionales y el Diálogo Exterior, July 2008
The systematic use of extreme violence, in particular sexual violence, in conflict and post-conflict situations raises the pressing question of how to end the cycle of impunity. Although the priority is for national justice systems to bring the perpetrators of massive human rights abuses in their territories to account, it has been amply demonstrated that this is not always a practical answer. This report includes key points of debate regarding proposals relating to the pending challenges in achieving justice for women.

To read the full report, please click here

Africa: The Limits and Possibilities of Transitional Justice
AllAfrica.com, July 2008
In considering the wars in the Central African Republic (CAR), Darfur, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where the use of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) is widespread, this paper seeks to accomplish two tasks. The first task is descriptive: to give an overview of the manner in which the International Criminal Court (ICC) has responded to SGBV in the three countries. The second task is a modest attempt to analyze why SGBV continues to be inadequately addressed. Here, the paper considers the practical challenges that are inherent in transitional justice as a tool, particularly in its preference of some harms and narratives over others.

To read the full paper, please click here

Transitional justice in sexual and gender-based violence
Pambazuka News, July 2008
It is now fashionable in academic and activist circles to speak of transitional justice in normative, inflexible terms that suggest a utopian certainty. Nothing could be further from the truth. At the outset, we need to understand that transitional justice concepts are experimental – good experiments to be sure – but that they do not offer us tested panacea because they are essentially works in progress. What is more useful for us to do is to imagine transitional notions as one incomplete vehicle through which we can understand and start the recovery of a tormented society. If we keep this perspective, then we are more likely to achieve a more realistic result.

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Tradition-based Approaches in Peacemaking, Transitional Justice and Reconciliation Policies
International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance
What role does traditional justice play in dealing with legacies of human rights abuses? How can interpersonal and community-based practices interrelate with state-organised and internationally sponsored forms of retributive justice and truth telling? This report provides a comparative analysis of traditional justice mechanisms in Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, Uganda and Burundi. Most of the countries studied combine traditional justice and reconciliation instruments with other transitional justice strategies.

To read the full report, please click here

Enhancing the EU Response to Women and Armed Conflict with Particular Reference to Development Policy
European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM), April 2008
Women’s multiple and diverse roles in conflict are hidden, poorly understood and, at times, consciously or unconsciously dismissed. Usually it is women’s role as victims that is given most prominence. Though, in recent years the international community has become more responsive to women’s diverse roles as actors on conflict prevention, resolution and peace-building, there is recognition that the EU’s response to this reality must be scaled up, widened and deepened. Local, national or international action that does not involve and empower women is less likely to be successful and sustainable in any field, including that which is intended to bring development or peace. This study is based on the premise that a more effective international/EU response to women and armed conflict must incorporate the three inter-related and mutually reinforcing concepts of gender equality, women’s empowerment and upholding women’s rights.

To read the full report, which looks at access to justice, please click HERE

Legal Tools: CEDAW Case Bank
Global Justice Center
The Global Justice Center continuously compiles cases from domestic and international courts that cite to CEDAW or CEDAW-OP as persuasive precedent for their decisions. These cases represent modern advancements in women's rights jurisprudence throughout the world. Casebank aims to be useful for advocates or researchers in learning how to better advocate and argue for women's rights in domestic and international courts.

Sierra Leone: Getting Reparations Right for Survivors of Sexual Violence
Amnesty International, November 2007
Six years after the end of the conflict in Sierra Leone, little has been done to ensure that survivors of sexual violence receive justice, acknowledgement of their suffering, or full, meaningful and effective reparations. Amnesty International interviewed women and girls who have employed many strategies to survive, both during the conflict and in its aftermath. This report contains their findings in relation the impact of sexual violence on survivors, and the role of government and non-governmental actors in ensuring justice.

To view the full report, please click HERE

To view a summary, please click HERE

Gender, Justice, and Truth Commissions
PREM Gender and Development Group, ESSD Conflict Prevention and Reconstruction Team, Legal and Judicial Reform Practice Group, LAC Public Sector Group, World Bank, June 2006
Truth commissions (TCs) are formed to investigate human rights violations that occur during armed conflict or under repressive regimes. When their work ends, TCs report their findings, along with recommendations for reparations and prevention of future abuses. By taking a gender-sensitive approach to its work, a commission can differentiate between the causes and consequences of human rights violations for men and women and design a gender-sensitive program of reparations.

Where Are the Men? What About Women?
Simic Olivera, Peace and Conflict Monitor, August 2005

Women Propel South Africa's Truth And Reconciliation Commission
Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, Women Waging Peace, Media Advisory, May 16, 2005

MEXICO: Indigenous Women and Military Injustice
Amnesty International, November 2004

Negotiating the Transition to Democracy and Reforming the Security Sector: The Vital Contributions of South African Women
Sanam Naraghi Anderlini and Camille Pampell Conaway, Women Waging Peace, Policy Commission, August 2004

On Women's Initiatives for Gender Justice and the International Criminal Court: An Interview with Brigid Inder
WHRnet and Brigid Inder, Women's Initiatives for Gender Justice, August 2004

Women's Participation in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY): Transitional Justice for Bosnia and Herzegovina  
Julie Mertus with Olija Hocevar Van Wely, Women Waging Peace, July 2004

Giving Women their Voice: Domestic Violence and Restorative Justice in South Africa
Amanda Dissel & Kindiza Ngubeni, Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, XIth International Symposium on Victimology, Stellenbosch, July 2003

A Message from the Women's Caucus for Gender Justice
April 2003

International Justice for Women: The ICC Marks a New Era
Human Rights Watch, Backgrounder, 1 July 2002

End Impunity: Justice for the Victims of Torture
Amnesty International, Take a Step to Stamp Out Torture campaign, 2001
This report highlights the shameful fact that most torturers commit their crimes safe i nthe knowledge that they will never face arrest, prosecution or punishment. however, the tide is turning. This report shows how governments can take the next steps to overcome impunity. order this report

The Status of Rape as a War Crime in International Law: Changes Introduced After the Wars in the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda
Vesna Kesic, M.A. Thesis, South Eastern European Women's Legal Initiative (SEELINE), December 2001
Legally, this change became effective with the establishment of the International War Crime Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in February 1993, (ICTY) and the Tribunal for Rwanda, 1995 (ICTR). The Statute of the ICTY is the first international legal document that singles out rape as a crime against humanity. This means that rape, to be prosecuted under that section, requires proof that the act was part of a widespread or systematic attack "against a civilian population on national, political, ethnic, racial or religious grounds.[8]” Feminist legal scholars objected to such formulation on the grounds that once again the gender dimension of rape during war was being subordinated to the ethnic (or national, racial, religious) dimension, and that the Statute does not specify patterns of rapes independent of ethnic, political, racial, national, or religious violence as a crime against women. Nevertheless, the Statute is considered to be both a success in its recognition of gender-based crimes as a distinct phenomenon, and a cornerstone for the future permanent establishment of an International Criminal Court that integrates gender crimes in international justice.

Ending Impunity for Gender Crimes under the International Criminal Court
Barbara Bedont, Assistant Coordinator, Democracy and Justice Program, International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development and Katherine Hall Martinez, Deputy Director, International Program, Center for Reproductive Rights, 1999
For millennia, women and girls have suffered rape, sexual slavery, forced pregnancy and other brutal forms of sexual and gender violence during armed conflict. Like other forms of war related brutality, such violence is often sanctioned, tolerated or ordered by military, paramilitary or other governmental actors. Although the international community has made some strides in outlawing and punishing atrocities committed during armed conflict through the development of international humanitarian law, gender-based violence has been consistently marginalized or dismissed as a natural consequence of war.

International Criminal Court: Summary of Recommendations Composition & Administration of the Court, Crimes Against Humanity
Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice, Preparation for March (6th) Prep Com, 1997

UN Documents

Peace Needs Women and Women Need Justice
UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and International Legal Assistance Consortium (ILAC), Fact Sheet, Conference on Gender Justice in Post-Conflict Situations, September 2004

Statement at NGO Panel on Violence Against Women in War
Angela E.V. King, Special Advisor on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, New York, 11 October 2001

Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC)   [pdf]
1998

Government Statements and Reports

Books, Journals and Articles

New World Court to Judge Gender-Based War Crimes
Cynthia L. Cooper, Women's E-News, 17 April 2002
The new International Criminal Court will give women a place to seek justice for gender-related crimes committed against them in armed conflicts and as part of systematic violence or persecution.

Healing the Psychological Wounds of Gender-Related Violence in Latin America: A Model for Gender-Sensitive Work in Post-Conflict Contexts
Helen Leslie. Gender and Development, Vol 9, Issue 3,pp 50-60. November 2001
This article presents a model of healing which conceptualizes and addresses the psychological effects on women of gender-related violence in the post-conflict context. The model is drawn from the experience of Las Dignas, an El Salvadoran NGO, and from key insights from gender and development literature.

Breaking the History of Silence: The Women's International War Crimes Tribunal 2000 for the Trial of Japanese Military Sexual Slavery
Violence Against Women in War Network-Japan. Video Juku. 2001
The Women's International War Tribunal held in Tokyo, Japan, 8-12 December 2000 was a Peoples' Tribunal set up to bring those responsible for Japan's military sexual violence, in particular the enslavement of "comfort women", to justice, and to end the ongoing cycle of impunity for wartime violence against women.

The Role of Women in Promoting Peace and Reconciliation: Bougainville
Sister Lorraine Garasu, CSN, BICWF Forum for Peace workshop, 1996; Accord: an international review of peace initiatives, 2002