The International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda dev...

The International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda developed groundbreaking international jurisprudence outlawing rape and sexual violence during war. Investigating and prosecuting gender crimes has also been an integral part of the investigative and prosecutorial strategy of the Special Court for Sierra Leone. The Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court (ICC), built upon the recognition of sexual violence as a serious international crime by the ad hoc tribunals and expanded the scope of sexual violence-based crimes in international law. The Rome Statute specifies a greater number of sexual violence crimes than the statutes of the ad hoc tribunals, and acknowledges that these crimes can be committed against men and women. It is important that the Rome Statute's gender sensitivity be translated into national prosecutions to make sure that national proceedings take into account the gender dimension of atrocity crimes to the same extent as the Rome Statute does.