CASE WESTERN RESERVE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW

Do We Need New International Law to Protect Women in Armed Conflict?

In this article, Karima Bennoune assesses two competing views about the status of the protection of women in armed conflict in international humanitarian law. The first view, espoused by the International Committee of the Red Cross, holds that existing laws are adequate to protect women in armed conflict if only they are properly implemented and respected.

International Crimes against Women - Sexual Violence and Peremptory Norms: The Legal Value of Rape

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.