Issues Surrounding The Creation Of A Regional Human Rights System For The Asia-Pacific

The only major region of the world that does not have a regional human rights commission or court is the Asia-Pacific. The Asia-Pacific can generally be recognized to include not only the entire Asian region, from Japan and the Philippines in the East to Pakistan and Afghanistan in the West, but also areas of the South Pacific, including Australia, New Zealand, the East Indies and the Pacific Islands, and Russia

Securing Justice for Women in the United Nations International War Crimes Tribunals and Beyond

Askin is a fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University as well as a legal consultant to the United Nations and other world agencies in the areas of international humanitarian and criminal law. She has previously served as acting executive director of the War Crimes Research Office at the Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Washington College of Law, American University. She teaches primarily in the areas of international humanitarian law and international gender issues. She is the author of War Crimes Against Women: Prosecution in International War Crimes Tribunals and chief editor of the three volume treatise Women and International Human Rights Law

War crimes against women and international war crimes tribunals

This thesis reviews the treatment of women in practice and theory in regards to laws of war and gender prosecution in international war crimes tribunals. Dating back two thousand years, rape and sexual abuse of women has been commonplace during periods of armed conflict, and punishment of these crimes has been a low, or nonexistent, priority. From the evolution of the customs of war in the Middle Ages, to the first codification of the laws of war, to the initiation of international instruments regulating war, to international tribunals to punish war criminals of World War P, gender based violence against women during wartime has been shamefully neglected in both domestic and international laws (human rights and humanitarian). As such, the thesis combines the historical survey of the treatment of women in past war crimes tribunals, with practical steps to prosecute gender crimes in present war crimes tribunals, and with propositions to amend the laws to provide future protections. This thesis reviewed the history and establishment of the Nuremberg and Tokyo War Crimes Tribunals. In reviewing these tribunals, and subsequently the trials, special emphasis was placed on the crimes within the jurisdiction of the tribunals, and the Allied power's eagerness to invoke innovative crimes regarding persecution on religious or political grounds, particularly regarding the massacre of the Jews, but their reluctance to afford the most minimum of efforts to prosecute gender related offenses. In order to reconcile the international communities neglect of women's issues, the status of women in domestic and international law and practice was reviewed, both in the past and in the present, and scenarios presented as to how certain issues have contributed to the failure of the legal community to address women's issues, and suggestions made as to how some of these problems can be rectified. With the past history as a cornerstone of proof of the urgent need to afford adequate protection to women during wartime, and the desperate need to support this protection with enforcement, the Balkan conflict will be reviewed, and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia will be analysed. Reports of gender specific violence will include rape, forced prostitution, genocide, torture, sexual mutilation, forced impregnation, forced sterilization, and forced maternity. Particular emphasis will be placed upon instances of organized, systematic rape and cases of single, isolated rape, and the prosecution of these offenses under the terms of the Yugoslav Statute. The central argument throughout the thesis will be that all gender based violence against women committed as a direct result of the armed conflict should be explicitly defined and rigorously punished as serious violations of international humanitarian law. An extensive analysis will be presented on ways in which the Yugoslav Tribunal, and subsequently the Rwandan and future tribunals, can prosecute gender related violence, and why they must do so. Throughout the thesis, reviewing women's subordination from 500 B.C. to the present, it will be consistently argued that the abuses against women in wartime are subjugated in part because women have not been afforded sufficient recognition and protection domestically. Domestically, women continue to be discriminated against when the international community ignores the abuses committed against them, or labels wartime abuses as belonging in the domestic sphere. Violence against women in wartime continues to be regarded as a natural occurrence of war, typically rejected for investigation or prosecution by both the domestic and international communities. As the poor treatment of women domestically marginalizes the attention given to victims of wartime violence, lack of attention to wartime violence against women marginalizes all women. The continuous circle of ignoring gender specific abuse against women continues, with neither domestic nor international laws affording adequate attention, protection, or redress. However, it appears that the cycle of complacency about gender issues in the international community has come to a halt, with several indictments in the Yugoslav Tribunal charging defendants with sexual assault offenses. Successful prosecution of gender related crimes in the Yugoslav and Rwandan Tribunals will not only provide current victims with a remedy, but will also extend protections to women in ongoing and future armed conflicts, by terminating the impunity with which sex crimes have previously been afforded

Edith House Lecture Series - image 16

Photograph (back side) of Kelly Dawn Askin, a fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University, speaking in Hirsch Hall at the University of Georgia School of Law, where she delivered Securing Justice for Women in the United Nations International War Crimes Tribunals and Beyond, as an Edith House Lecture at the University of Georgia School of Law on March 26, 2002. Established in 1983, the Edith House Lecture Series brings outstanding female legal scholars and practitioners to the University of Georgia. Transcribed from photo: Edith House lecture/ 2002/ Dr. Kelly Askin/ Hirsch Hall Highlights.https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/house_lectures/1031/thumbnail.jp

Edith House Lecture Series - image 16

Photograph (back side) of Kelly Dawn Askin, a fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University, speaking in Hirsch Hall at the University of Georgia School of Law, where she delivered Securing Justice for Women in the United Nations International War Crimes Tribunals and Beyond, as an Edith House Lecture at the University of Georgia School of Law on March 26, 2002. Established in 1983, the Edith House Lecture Series brings outstanding female legal scholars and practitioners to the University of Georgia. Transcribed from photo: Edith House lecture/ 2002/ Dr. Kelly Askin/ Hirsch Hall Highlights.https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/house_lectures/1031/thumbnail.jp

Edith House Lecture Series - image 15

Photograph (front side) of Kelly Dawn Askin, a fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University, speaking in Hirsch Hall at the University of Georgia School of Law, where she delivered Securing Justice for Women in the United Nations International War Crimes Tribunals and Beyond, as an Edith House Lecture at the University of Georgia School of Law on March 26, 2002. Established in 1983, the Edith House Lecture Series brings outstanding female legal scholars and practitioners to the University of Georgia.https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/house_lectures/1030/thumbnail.jp

Edith House Lecture Series - image 15

Photograph (front side) of Kelly Dawn Askin, a fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University, speaking in Hirsch Hall at the University of Georgia School of Law, where she delivered Securing Justice for Women in the United Nations International War Crimes Tribunals and Beyond, as an Edith House Lecture at the University of Georgia School of Law on March 26, 2002. Established in 1983, the Edith House Lecture Series brings outstanding female legal scholars and practitioners to the University of Georgia.https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/house_lectures/1030/thumbnail.jp

Holding Leaders Accountable in the International Criminal Court (ICC) for Gender Crimes Committed in Darfur

This article discusses how rape and other forms of sexual violence have been prominent features of the ongoing attacks (from 2003 to the present) committed by government of Sudan (GoS) troops and the Janjaweed (Arab militia) in Darfur, Sudan. It first provides a historical overview of wartime rape in law and society, then discusses some of the many reports (including the UN’s Commission of Inquiry on Darfur) that have documented the perpetration of rape and other forms of sexual violence in Darfur by GoS troops and Janjaweed. Following a discussion of specific cases of rape and other sexual crimes committed in Darfur, the author discusses how such crimes can be and have been prosecuted as war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Among the other issues discussed in the essay are the concepts of individual and superior responsibility, as they relate to prosecuting those responsible for sexual violence, and the critical need to hold leaders accountable for sex crimes