Provisions in international law to address conflict-related sexual violence
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Date
2025
Authors
Scriven, Richard
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Cork Online Law Review
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Abstract
Sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) is a worldwide issue impacting millions of people annually, especially women and girls. War, disasters, and other humanitarian situations result in significant increases in these types of abuses. Moreover, sexual violence is intentionally deployed as a component of conflict to demoralise opposing combatants and to terrorise civilian populations. This article examines how international law has responded to these circumstances by putting in place mechanisms to protect individuals from conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) and to hold perpetrators to account. While international legal systems are making advances to address these pervasive and highly damaging crimes, there are challenges and limitations to how these instruments can assist victims/survivors and vulnerable groups, particularly in terms of implementation. There is a pressing need for greater resolve and coordination by the international community to use the capacities of international legal infrastructures to better protect people and to ensure that justice is pursued. Ineffective and inconsistent application of international law in addressing CRSV erodes its role as a deterrent which continues to leave whole groups, especially women and children in conflict situations.
The article’s argument progresses in five sections, beginning with an overview of the definition of CRSV and examining its horrifying presence in contemporary conflicts. This leads to a discussion of how international law tools and structures are attempting to protect individuals and groups through the recognition and codification of these acts as crimes and human rights abuses, as well as through compliance mechanisms and practical interventions in conflicts and post-conflict areas. Thirdly, a brief consideration of case law from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) highlights the progress being made towards greater accountability as well as the challenges being faced. Then, there is a discussion of how international legal structures can improve and strengthen their capacities to prevent SGBV during conflicts and where it occurs, offer more victim/survivors centred justice. The overall conclusion emphasises the main points and highlights areas of further study.
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Keywords
Sexual and gender-based violence , SGBV , Conflict-related sexual violence , CRSV , International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia , International Criminal Court
Citation
Scriven, R. (2025) 'Provisions in international law to address conflict-related sexual violence', Cork Online Law Review, COLR, 24, pp. 142-158.
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© 2025, Cork Online Law Review .