This lecture was delivered by the Legal Adviser for Gender Related Crimes and Trial Attorney, Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Rwanda (ICTR)at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law on March 2, 2002. The lecture addresses whether sexual violence is a peremptory norm under international law. It inquires just how high up the legal hierarchy rape has traveled, and more specifically, what the legal value that international law attaches to the act of rape is now considered to be.