Sexual Violence in War-Torn Ukraine: A Challenge for International Criminal Justice

Abstract

Sexual violence constitutes a set of offences established by international law, particularly after the establishment of the ad hoc International Criminal Tribunals and the permanent International Criminal Court. This chapter presents an overview of the situation regarding gender-based violence in the recent and ongoing Russian-Ukrainian dispute over Crimea. Especially in the regions of Eastern Ukraine, many cases of human rights violations, including evidence of sexual violence in the areas affected by military operations, are recorded in the reports of various international bodies. Meanwhile, Ukrainian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working for gender equality have presented findings highlighting incidents of sexual violence that are punishable under the International Criminal Court’s statute, including threats of rape and other forms of sexual violence, as well as methods of ill-treatment and torture in the context of sexual abuse, primarily against women and men. Considering that the Russian-Ukrainian war is still under preliminary examination by the International Criminal Court, the breakdown in the rule of law in conflict-affected areas in Ukraine has increased the vulnerability towards sexual and gender-based violence, including both crimes related to the jurisdiction of the Court, and also domestic sexual violence. The related reports have shown that there is not much information on the armed conflict situation in Ukraine in which sexual violence has been widely or systematically employed against civilians in general. As documented, most incidents of sexual violence have taken place under a regime of the illegal detention of women, often followed by various forms of sexual violence against them by members of illegal armed forces. The International Criminal Court is conducting an in-depth analysis of received information related to this conflict in order to establish a reasonable connection between the alleged crimes and the jurisdiction of the court. The main question in the case of the Russian-Ukrainian war is whether the International Criminal Court, as a permanent and established holdover of international criminal justice will continue to face, in addition to its statutory provision, crimes against sexual violence to the extent they deserve, given their heinous nature and the particular and growing needs of the victims.