Sex-Based Violence and the Holocaust - A Re-evaluation of Harms and Rights in International Law

This article identifies a general underdevelopment of sanctions pertaining to sexual violation during conflict situations. The article further explores the extent to which particular aspects of gender violence during war are entirely without legal scrutiny. This absence of scrutiny is explored through analysis of new empirical research conducted into sexual violations that occurred during the Holocaust. In analyzing the concept of harm, the author focuses on maternal separation and sexual erasure, demonstrating the inability of international law to articulate these acts as harms and the degree to which particular indignities were intended to have broader military objectives. Emphasizing the central paradigm of individual autonomy upon which the international human rights discourse is founded, the author concludes by reflecting on how international standards of protection may progress in future. [Descriptors: Armed Conflict, International]