Women, Peace and Security - Janet Benshoof
The last two decades have seen a dramatic transformation in the Security Council’s (Council) role in advancing and enforcing international humanitarian law (IHL). The changing nature of armed conflict, the universal acceptance of human rights, the calcification of certain precepts of international law into jus cogens, and advances in international law have all redefined the limits of state sovereignty and influenced the modern understanding of the Council’s mandate under the United Nations Charter (Charter).
Within this new paradigm, the Council has made protecting civilians in armed conflict central to its duty to maintain international peace and security. As part of this effort, the Council has passed a series of resolutions addressing the impact of armed conflict on women and the use of sexual violence in conflict (Women, Peace and Security Series, WPS Series).Despite these efforts, the resolutions have failed to achieve one of the Council’s main goals – ending sexual violence perpetrated against women in armed conflicts around the world.
The chapter, Women, Peace and Security, in the forthcoming publication, Security Council in the Age of Human Rights, examines the Council’s actions in the WPS Series against its duties to act under the evolving imperatives of IHL, in particular those rules considered jus cogens. The chapter argues that the Council has a duty to take stronger and more effective measures to address sexual violence against girls and women in armed conflict, in order to successfully deter its use.
- The Council should restructure the monitoring and implementation of the WPS Series: The Council must make clear the duties of States and UN entities to "respect" and "ensure respect" for IHL in all circumstances, and ensure that the rights and protections guaranteed by IHL are fully implemented and enforced. This requires a radical restructuring by the Council of the monitoring and implementation of the WPS Series to ensure that UN entities and states ensure and advance IHL rights where applicable. Furthermore, to help remediate the failure of the WPS Series to distinguish women’s rights under IHL, the Council can separate measures taken under Chapter VI and Chapter VII, as it has done in the past.
- The Council must make clear that use of rape as a tactic of war is prohibited and triggers intransgressable duties on states and the UN to take all measures possible to end it use: As part of this effort, the Council should require States, at a minimum, to amend their national laws to include sexual violence along with other unlawful means or methods of warfare, such as starvation, under IHL. Additionally, the Council must affirm the rights of women victims of sexual violence used in this manner to the same rights to accountability, cessation, and reparations as victims of other unlawful means or methods. Lastly, the Council should expand the Secretary-General’s reporting mandate under Resolution 1960 to include a list of parties, even those not on the Council’s agenda, who are using sexual violence in order to guide Council engagement.
- The Council should ensure multisectoral response to victims in accordance with IHL: The 2013 Secretary-General’s Report on sexual violence in conflict reminds Member States of the need “[t]o ensure that multisectoral assistance and services are tailored to the specific needs of girls and boys.” This requirement must be read in conjunction with the non-discrimination mandates of IHL – which requires that girls and women victims of sexual violence in conflict have access to the full range of medical, legal and psychological services, and that such services are provided without discrimination and in accordance with IHL and international human rights law. Therefore, the Council should require Member States to conform to the nondiscriminatory mandates of IHL.
- Furthermore, this highlights the fact that women are “often forced to carry out unwanted pregnancies resulting from rape, or undergo dangerous abortion.” It thus recommends that “access to safe emergency contraception and services for termination of pregnancies resulting from rape should be an integral component of multisectoral response.” In line with this recommendation, the Council should remind States of their obligations to ensure the provision of safe abortion and emergency contraception as a component of any multisectoral response to sexual violence in conflict.
