The Evolution of Gender Crimes
This seminar in international law traces the development of what are now called “gender crimes” from their early roots in international humanitarian law and criminal law, where they were not explicitly recognized as such, through conceptual analyses as sex- or gender-based, to prominent advances in human rights including in the regional human rights systems and international ad hoc tribunals (ICTY, ICTR, SCSL in particular), to their current apex form in the Rome Statute (2000) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) as war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Special attention will be paid to the way gender is obscured or mainstreamed in crimes of violence, and how encompassing the realities of gender-based atrocities in substantive law affects and shapes various technical rubrics such as investigation, preventive relocation, witness
“proofing”/preparation, modes of liability, confidentiality, and victim/witness participation. The first half of the seminar will scrutinize historical settings, including the Nuremberg Trials and the Tokyo Trials; the second half will delve into breaking developments in current cases, including those being prosecuted before the ICC.
This seminar is taught by Professor Catharine A. MacKinnon (also Special Gender Advisor to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court)