ABSTRACT
Sexual violence has long formed part of armed conflicts and has empirically been shown not to be an incidental byproduct, but a frequently used, “weapon of war.” Various treaties of international humanitarian law outlaw sexual violence in times of armed conflict. The Statutes of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia explicitly include rape as a crime against humanity and—in the case of the ICTR—as a war crime. The ad hoc Tribunals are the first to have dealt extensively with crimes of sexual violence in times of armed conflict. The chapter shows that sexual violence that qualifies as genocide, a crime against humanity, or a war crime occurs under circumstances that are inherently coercive and negate any possibility of genuine consent. An emphasis on consent does not fit such situations and would lead to a definition that would ultimately contradict itself.
