Prosecuting Crimes of Rape and Sexual Violence at the ICTR: The Application of Joint Criminal Enterprise Theory
![handle is hein.journals/hwlj29 and id is 207 raw text is: PROSECUTING CRIMES OF RAPE AND SEXUAL
VIOLENCE AT THE ICTR: THE APPLICATION OF
JOINT CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE THEORY
REBECCA L. HAFFAJEE*
I. INTRODUCTION
During the 1994 conflict in Rwanda, rape occurred on a massive scale
in the genocide that claimed the lives of between 500,000 and one mil-
lion Rwandans.' R6ne Degni-Segui, the Special Rapporteur on the situa-
tion of human rights in Rwanda, as appointed by the United Nations Hu-
man Rights Commission, estimated that between 250,000 and 500,000 rapes
occurred in total. He elaborated that [rnape was systemic and was used
as a 'weapon' by the perpetrators of the massacres ... [and aiccording to
consistent and reliable testimony, . . . rape was the rule and its absence was
the exception.2
Rape and sexual violence were used during the Rwandan genocide as
political and military tools to target female Tutsi civilians; the crimes, in-
strumentalities of war, often had little or no sexual component. Though
low-level militia members and soldiers generally perpetrated these crimes,
military and political leaders instigated, encouraged, oversaw, and, at times,
personally committed rape and acts of sexual violence.3 Thus, these high
level officials should be held criminally responsible.
After delays in the United Nations' (UN) post-genocide investigation
of crimes of a sexual nature, the Officer of the Prosecutor (OTP) at the Inter-
* J.D. Candidate, Harvard Law School, Class of 2006. M.P.H. Candidate, Harvard School
of Public Health, Class of 2006. The author wishes to thank Binaifer Nowrojee, Richard
Goldstone, Don Webster and the Government I Prosecution Team, Alison Cole, and the edito-
rial staff of the Harvard Journal of Law & Gender for sharing valuable insights and for
providing critical guidance on the development of the themes throughout this Note. The
author served as a legal intern in the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in the
summer of 2004.
1HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, SHATTERED LIVES: SEXUAL VIOLENCE DURING THE RWANDAN
GENOCIDE AND ITS AFTERMATH (1996), available at http://hrw.org/reports/1996/Rwanda.htm
[hereinafter SHATTERED LIVES]. The violence was directed predominantly toward the Tutsi
minority group and Hutu majority moderates and was perpetrated by Interahamwe Hutu mili-
tia members, Rwandan Armed Forces (Forces Armies Rwandaises) soldiers, and other civil-
ians. Doctors have attested to the high prevalence of rapes, in particular, after examining nu-
merous victims immediately following the genocide. Id.
2 Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights, Report on the Situation of
Human Rights in Rwanda, 16, U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/1996/68 (Jan. 29, 1996).
' SHATTERED LIVES, supra note 1.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/hwlj29&div=10&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Prosecuting Crimes of Rape and Sexual Violence at the ICTR: The Application of Joint Criminal Enterprise Theory
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