ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 contains a detailed analysis of the ICC negotiations regarding the definitions of war rape and forced marriage. It demonstrates that the Women’s Caucus and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) as non-state actors as well as the Arab block, Colombia and the US as state actors drove those negotiations. Drawing on national and international normative structures, they understood rape as a crime in and of itself and/or as constituting other crimes. They defined it as an act of invasion and/or penetration committed under coercive circumstances and/or without the consent of the victim. Chapter 5 argues that the final definition of rape as ‘invasion resulting in penetration’ was a compromise based on international and national rules. Forced marriage in times of armed conflict was understood as a form of sexual slavery. It is argued that this definition was guided by international normative structures in which forced marriage had only ever been discussed in that context. Both crimes were understood as a question of honour by some and as a form of structural violence by others.
