The emergence of the concept of rape as an atrocity in international law

• Author: Agim Nuhiu - Ajten K. Ramadani
• Position: Agim Nuhiu is the Deputy Minister of Interior Affairs in the government of the Republic of North Macedonia. He was formerly a Professor of Law at the State University of Tetovo where he held positions as Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Law 2009-2010; Chairman of the University Council 2010; and Head of the Department of Civil Law - Faculty of Law 2...
• Pages: 61-73

61

Vol. 5 No.1

May, 2019

Balkan Journal of Interdisciplinary Research

IIPCCL Publishing, Graz-Austria

ISSN 2410-759X

Acces online at www.iipccl.org

The emergence of the concept of rape as an atrocity in international law

Agim Nuhiu1

Ajten K. Ramadani2

Ministry of the Interior, Republic of North Macedonia

Abstract

Recent confl icts, just like earlier ones in history, have had extreme e ects specifi cally on

women civilians. This paper provides a critical analysis of the various historical stages in the

legal defi nition of ‘mass rape’, with the aim of establishing how the concept has evolved in

the discourse of international law. As methodology, we use an applied version of critical legal

research combined with feminist criminology of international law. The main fi nding is that

much progress has been achieved in making the invisible crime of mass rape in wartime visible,

in the text and interpretation of international treaties, in case law, and in trial procedures in

international tribunals, but all of the above elements require more radical reform before they

can truly help to overcome the patriarchal assumption that men possess and own women's

bodies – an assumption for which rape and especially mass rape in wartime continue to be a

proof.

Introduction

Throughout history, women have su ered mass rape during war. Examples are

abundant and reach back to the earliest records. For example, in April 1204, the siege

and sack of Constantinople by the Crusaders and their Venetian allies occurred,

marking the culmination of the Fourth Crusade. The Crusaders raped women en

masse including nuns in Constantinople. (Papayianni 2016, p. 284) In 1937-8, Japanese

soldiers carried out mass rape of women in Nanking (Judgment of the International

Military Tribunal for the Far East, Paragraph 2, p. 1012). During World War II German

soldiers raped many Jewish and Russian women (Seifert 1993). At the end of the

war, when the Red Army occupied eastern parts of Germany, Russian soldiers raped

German women: some estimates put the number of victims as high as two million

(Heinemann 1996). During the 1971 Bangladesh war for independence, Pakistani

soldiers raped between 200,000 and 400,000 Bangladeshi women and girls (Sharlach

2000, 92-93). U.S. soldiers raped unknown but certainly large numbers of Vietnamese

women (Weaver 2010, 5-6 and passim).

Until the end of the Second World War, international law was indi erent to all

types of sexual violence. Rape was considered normal and acceptable in wars,

1 Agim Nuhiu is the Deputy Minister of Interior Affairs in the government of the Republic of North Macedonia.

He was formerly a Professor of Law at the State University of Tetovo where he held positions as Vice-Dean

of the Faculty of Law 2009-2010; Chairman of the University Council 2010; and Head of the Department

of Civil Law - Faculty of Law 2015. He holds the degrees of: Master of Legal Studies - Civil Law, from the

University of Tirana, Albania, and Doctor of Legal Sciences from the University of Tirana, Albania.

2 Ajten Ramadani. After graduating from the Faculty of Criminal Justice Sciences in Sarajevo University,

Ajten Ramadani completed her PhD about war rape, in the law faculty of Saints Cyril and Methodius

University in Skopje. She currently works as a Senior Counsellor to the Deputy Minister in the Ministry of

Interior Affairs in the Republic of North Macedonia.