Genocidal Rape in Bosnia: Redress in United States Courts under the Alien Tort Claims Act
![handle is hein.journals/uclawo4 and id is 109 raw text is: GENOCIDAL RAPE IN BOSNIA: REDRESS
IN UNITED STATES COURTS UNDER
THE ALIEN TORT CLAIMS ACT
Yolanda S. Wu*
INTRODUCTION
Stories of rape as a tool of ethnic cleansing' in war-torn Bos-
nia-Hercegovina have been widely documented.2 According to
Helsinki Watch investigators,
[s]oldiers attacking villages have raped women and girls in
their homes, in front of family members and in the village
square. Women have been arrested and raped during interro-
* J.D. candidate, UCLA School of Law, 1994; B.A., Princeton University,
1989. The author would like to thank Martha Davis, Beth Stephens, and the editors
of the UCLA Women's Law Journal.
1. Ethnic cleansing is the Serbian policy of removing or liquidating all non-
Serbs from the territory that was Yugoslavia. Although rapes by Muslims and Croa-
tians have also been reported, only Serbs have used rape as a weapon of war and as
a government-announced tool to achieve ethnic cleansing. 1 HELSINKI WATCH,
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, WAR CRIMES IN BOSNIA-HERCEGOVINA 10 (1992) [herein-
after HELSINKI WATCH I]. Helsinki Watch is one regional division of Human Rights
Watch, a U.S.-based, independent, non-governmental organization that conducts
regular, systematic investigations of human rights abuses. See also Paul Lewis, Rape
Was Weapon of Serbs, U.N. Says, N.Y. TIMES, Oct. 20, 1993, at Al, A6 (United
Nations War Crimes Commission, which has collected reports of 3000 rape cases and
identified 800 of those victims by name, reports that although Serbian, Croatian
and Muslim soldiers and the police have all committed rape, the largest number of
alleged perpetrators were Serbs.). Notably, international organizations have begun
to document human rights abuses by Bosnian Croat and Muslim troops. See, e.g.,
Bosnia-Hercegovina: Abuses by Bosnian Croat and Muslim Forces in Central and
Southwestern Bosnia-Hercegovina, 5 HELSINKI WATCH, Issue 18, Sept. 1993.
2. See, e.g., Report on the Situation of Human Rights in the Territory of the
Former Yugoslavia Submitted by Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Special Rapporteur of the
Commission on Human Rights, U.N. ESCOR, 49th Sess., Annex, Agenda Item 27,
U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/1993/50 (1993); AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, BOSNIA-HERZEGO-
VINA: RAPE AND SEXUAL ABUSE BY ARMED FORCES (1993) [hereinafter RAPE AND
SEXUAL ABUSE]; HELSINKI WATCH I, supra note 1; 2 HELSINKI WATCH, HUMAN
RIGHTS WATCH, WAR CRIMES IN BOSNIA-HERCEGOVINA (1993) [hereinafter HEL-
SINKI WATCH II]; Abuses Continue in the Former Yugoslavia: Serbia, Montenegro
and Bosnia-Hercegovina, 5 HELSINKI WATCH, Issue 11, July 1993.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/uclawo4&div=11&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Genocidal Rape in Bosnia: Redress in United States Courts under the Alien Tort Claims Act
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