Abstract
Only after the horrors of the situation in former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, relabeling of wartime rape began to emerge. Sexual violence against women in the war has begun to be recognized as a serious crime and grave breach of Geneva’s law.
Circumstances of a conflict, whether international or internal can not lessen the nature or effect of the crime. The Statutes of ICTY and ICTR and particularly the case-law of these tribunals have opened a long way to redress historical imbalance by recognizing crimes of sexual violence to be of the most serious nature.
The Rwanda Tribunal’s Statute followed ICTY’s example by qualifying rape as a crime against humanity, but in addition to expressly declared rape, enforced prostitution and indecent assault also constitute violation of common Art. 3 of the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol II. As gender specific provisions they have been incorporated into the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court