Using the American Courts to Prosecute International Crimes against Women: Jane Doe v. Radovan Karadzic and S. Kadic v. Radovan Karadzic
![handle is hein.journals/cardw3 and id is 477 raw text is: USING THE AMERICAN COURTS TO PROSECUTE
INTERNATIONAL CRIMES AGAINST WOMEN:
JANE DOE V. RADOVAN KARADZIC AND S.
KADIC V. RADOVAN KARADZIC
I. INTRODUCTION
Rape has been used as a weapon of war throughout the ages
by armies which often consider rape a legitimate perk of battle.'
However, the systemized rape of an estimated 20,000 to 50,000
Bosnian Muslim women during the armed conflict which has ac-
companied the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia... [is] tan-
tamount to one of the most egregious orchestrated human rights
violations against women in this century.2
Only in the last century has the international community be-
gun to formulate agreements regarding acceptable conduct during
wartime. Many hoped that the war crime trials at the Nuremberg
Tribunal and the Tokyo War Crimes Trials would set a precedent,
thus creating a system that could enforce the rules set out by the
various conventions and human rights agreements.3 Unfortu-
nately, this has not happened, and the establishment of interna-
tional tribunals has not become the norm. In February 1993, the
United Nations Security Council voted to establish an interna-
tional tribunal to prosecute abuses committed in the former Yugo-
slavia.4 Effective prosecution in this forum has met with many
obstacles, especially because the violations involve human rights
abuses against women. These obstacles include prejudice faced by
women who report rape and other gender violence [,] ... difficul-
ties of proof[,] ... [and] the fact that many of the judges have no
experience with the prosecution of sex crimes... ., International
War Crimes Tribunal prosecution has been stalled due to political
considerations, by the possibility of a negotiated settlement, and
most crucially by the unwillingness of the United Nations to pro-
I See SUSAN BROWNMILLER, AGAINST OUR WILL: MEN, WOMEN AND RAPE, 31-113 (1975)
(discussion of rape in war).
2 Elizabeth A. Kohn, Rape as a Weapon of War: Women's Human Rights During the Dissolu-
tion of Yugoslavia, 24 GOLDEN GATE U. L. REv. 199, 199-200 (1994).
3 Beth Stephens, The Civil Lawsuit as a Remedy for International Human Rights Violations
Against Women, 5 HASTINGS WOMEN'S L.J. 143, 147-48 (1994).
4 Id. at 148.
5 Id. at 149.
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