ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a general sense of how sexual violence crimes have evolved in modern-day international criminal law, in this way preparing the ground for analysis carried out in subsequent chapters. It provides a summary of the main legal developments emerging from the two international ad hoc tribunals, as they share similar legal characteristics, normative objectives, and are both considered international community projects. The chapter examines the genealogy of gender-specific provisions of international humanitarian law using a feminist legal perspective. It focuses on the key International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) jurisdictional achievements accomplished in relation to wartime sexual violence by analysing the legal modalities through which these offences have been interpreted in international criminal law. The chapter analyzes how wartime sexual violence offences against women have been incorporated into the ICTY and reflects on the classification of sexual violence as a form of genocide in the ICTR Statute.
