ABSTRACT
The concept of rape as genocide began to emerge in the 1990s, when the systematic use of rape during the conflict in the former Yugoslavia was used as an instrument to attack both individual women and the groups to which they belonged. The 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (UNCG) was adopted in response to the horrors of the Holocaust in the post-Nuremberg Years. There are two major critical challenges facing the field today. The first concerns agreement on the legal definition of rape. The second challenge concerns the progress of the International Criminal Court (ICC). While rape and genocide have been linked in scholarly discourse, particularly in feminist interpretations of recent conflicts, the legal linkage did not appear until relatively recently. Rape as genocide continues to be a problem in contemporary international affairs that will need to be addressed on multiple fronts, through the law, education, and advocacy.
