The Curious Visibility of Wartime Rape: Gender and Ethnicity in International Criminal Law
![handle is hein.journals/windyrbaj25 and id is 7 raw text is: THE CURIOUS VISIBILITY OF WARTIME RAPE: GENDER AND
ETHNICITY IN INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL LAW
Doris E. Buss*
Wartime sexual violence against women has become a clearly
visible and established issue of concern in the emerging
international criminal apparatus. But what is it that we see
when we make violence against women visible as an
international criminal law issue? Are there limits to the
strategy of seeing women, and the human rights abuses they
suffer, within the work of war crimes tribunals? In this paper, I
focus on the Yugoslav and Rwandan Tribunals as venues at
which violence against women has been remarkably visible. I
consider two decisions, Gacumbitsi and Krsti6, one from each
of the Tribunals, that reveal the ways in which sexual violence
and inequality are both seen and unseen in the Tribunals'
analyses. I focus, in particular, on the intersection of gender
and ethnicity in the work of the Tribunals, and question if
ethnicity may be emerging as a meta-narrative within which
sexual violence against women materializes in constrained and
limited ways.
La violence sexuelle envers les femmes en temps de guerre est
devenue une preoccupation clairement visible et itablie dans
l'appareil criminel international qui est en train de se
dvelopper. Mais qu'est-ce que c'est que Von voit lorsque nous
rendons visible la violence envers les femmes comme question
de droit criminel international? Y a-t-il des limites a la
stratdgie de voir lesfemmes, et les abus des droits de la personne
dont elles sont victimes, dans le cadre du travail des tribunaux
de crimes de guerre? Darn cet article, je concentre l'attention
sur les tribunaux yougoslaves et rwandais en tant que lieux de
proc~s oi la violence envers lesfemmes a iti remarquablement
manifeste. J'examine deux dicisions, Gacumbitsi et Krstie, une
de chacun des tribunaux, qui font voir de quellesfacons on voit
et on ne voit pas la violence sexuelle et l'inigalitd dans les
analyses des tribunaux. Je concentre en particulier sur la
conjoncture du sexe et de l'ethniciti dans le travail des
tribunaux, et je pose la question a savoir s'il se pourrait que
l'ethniciti 6merge comme mita-narration darn le cadre de
Associate Professor of Law, Carleton University. [DorisBuss@Carletonca]. Many thanks to
Valerie Oosterveld and Christiane Wilke who read and commented on earlier drafts of this
paper. I also benefited enormously from presenting and receiving comments on a much earlier
version of this paper at the Theorising Intersectionality workshop at the AHRB Centre in Law,
Gender and Sexuality, Keele University, UK, and at the Feminist Legal Theory 'New Scholars'
workshop at the Faculty of Law, University of British Columbia (sponsored also by the
Canadian Journal of Women and the Law).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/windyrbaj25&div=5&collection=journals&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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The Curious Visibility of Wartime Rape: Gender and Ethnicity in International Criminal Law
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