Prosecuting Rape as a War Crime

Professor Christine Chinkin, Dr Dan Plesch, Ewan Lawson. Chaired by Dr Gina Heathcote

Panelists will discuss the work of the new LSE Centre on Women, Peace and Security and its nexus to cutting edge gender research at the SOAS Centre for Gender Studies and the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy

"Had the work of the UNWCC been taken into account by the drafters of the Security Council statutes for the ICTY and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the definitions of war crimes might well have been more explicit with regard to gender-related crimes. In any event, as the first Chief Prosecutor of the ICTY, I would have benefited immeasurably from access to this rich material ... Had we been able to access the ample records of the UNWCC, our approach would have unquestionably been influenced by the careful analyses that emerged from its deliberations and decisions." - Justice Richard Goldstone

Justice Richard Gladstone:United Nations War Crimes Commission Symposium, p4-5

"Dan and Shanti, with every justification, make the point that ignorance of the work of the UNWCC lead to false claims being made concerning the first truly international war crimes tribunals, the UN ad hoc tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and I hasten to refer to the fact that they refer in their article to my ignorance of the work of the UNWCC. They quoted me as having said in a forward to a book edited by Morten Bergsmo, a remarkable collection of papers on gender related crimes, they quote me correctly as having said the ICTY can be credited with having pioneered the modern law regarding gender related crimes, and especially the perpetration of systematic rape as a war crime. I went on to refer to the *NAME* indictment issued by the ICTY as quote ‘the first ever such prosecution of international sex crimes’ end quote. So I plead guilty today, for having made those historical miss-statements of fact, and to plead ignorance as a defence, or at least as a mitigating factor." - Justice Richard Goldstone Reinforcing International Human Rights Standards: Lessons from United Nations War Crimes Commission, p6 The Relevance of United Nations War Crimes Commission to the Prosecution of Sexual and Gender-Based Crimes Today

Organiser: CISD and CGS

Contact email: cisd@soas.ac.uk

Contact Tel: 020 7898 4840