The international community continues not only to be challenged by preventing crises before they occur, but also in addressing them in a timely and effective manner. The ongoing crises in Burundi, Syria and Yemen, to highlight a few, emphasize the need for renewed leadership and engagement in putting prevention up front.
The international community has a wide range of treaties and norms to address the root causes of armed conflict and prevent its recurrence. The Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) norm and the Women, Peace and Security Agenda have set new standards to build a more inclusive and legitimate multilateral system to more effectively address peace and security.
In this regard, the reviews carried out of the United Nations Peacebuilding Architecture, Peace Operations and the implementation of the Women, Peace and Security agenda in 2015 offered a new impetus for preventing armed conflicts, including the prevention of mass atrocity crimes. The reviews drew linkages between the implementation of the Responsibility to Protect norm, the inclusion of women in peacebuilding and peacekeeping and, the ratification and implementation of the Rome Statute (RS), as tools and mechanisms for the prevention of armed conflict and ensuring lasting peace. The reviews underscored that systematic violations of human rights, in particular of women’s rights, and the prevailing impunity for mass atrocity crimes are amongst the root causes of armed conflicts and their recurrence. Further, they shed light on the fact that participation of women constitutes a crucial dimension of broadening inclusion for sustaining peace and that peace negotiations and accords that are truly locally owned and are inclusive of Civil Society and women have at least a 50% greater chance to succeed than those that do not.
The Responsibility to Protect norm offers a scope of opportunities and strategies to reinforce national sovereignty, national legislations and institutions to prevent the commission of mass atrocity crimes. Implementing RtoP is needed now more than ever if the international community is determined to prevent mass atrocities once and for all. While all three pillars of the norm are equally important and should all keep a gender lens, I will elaborate more on the two pillars of the Responsibility to Protect norm that strengthen national and international early warning mechanisms to prevent the commission of mass atrocities and link them to accountability. Ensuring that the scope of the Responsibility to Protect norm includes a gender and accountability lens will further address the root causes of the commission of mass atrocity crimes and their recurrence, hence enhancing the RtoP preventive efforts.
The Responsibility to Protect Pillar Three of the norm whereby should a state be unable or unwilling to protect its populations, the international community has an obligation to take timely and decisive measures to prevent or halt the commission of atrocity crimes. RtoP’s third pillar includes a range of humanitarian, diplomatic, economic, and military measures (adopted in accordance with the UN Charter) to protect populations from atrocity crimes. When implementing such tools, the international community must always prioritize the protection needs of the population and consider the impact on civilians. It is essential that gender perspectives are mainstreamed throughout the implementation of such measures, and that policies are also focused on empowering women and girls in those contexts where their access remains limited.
Pillar One, whereby the state bears the responsibility to protect its population from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing should include a gender lens by ensuring that women’s rights and their participation are respected and promoted. Through preventing discrimination and the violation of women’s rights, national stakeholders support the long-term prevention of atrocity crimes and their recurrence.
Furthermore, linking RtoP with the Women, Peace and Security agenda reinforces the international community’s ability to assist states to fulfil their responsibility to protect, under Pillar Two of the norm. United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1325 was a landmark decision in addressing the gender gap in the peace and security arena – recognizing not only that women and girls are disproportionally affected by armed conflicts, but also that women are poorly represented in formal peacebuilding and peacemaking processes. Safeguarding women’s rights and their participation in peace and security is essential for the international community to effectively assist in promoting international human rights and humanitarian law and to strengthen national legislations and institutions to prevent mass atrocities. UNSC Resolutions 1820 and 1960 went further in recognizing sexual and gender-based violence as a weapon of war, and fighting impunity for these crimes is necessary for ensuring gender justice and long lasting peace. While the Women, Peace and Security agenda could further be reinforced and mainstreamed, these resolutions underscore how it has set a new standard in multilateralism by not only recognizing the crucial role of women in mass atrocity crimes prevention but also by drawing the linkages between peace and security, and accountability.
As underscored in both the report of the Secretary-General on Women, Peace and Security (S/2015/716) and the chapter, “Towards an era of transformative justice” of the 2015 UNWOMEN report “Preventing Conflict, Transforming Justice, Securing the Peace: A Global Study on the Implementation of United Nations Security Council resolution 1325”, all Security Council resolutions on Women, Peace and Security highlight the importance of accountability and the need to end impunity for sexual and gender-based crimes. The two reports also analyzed how the Rome Statute could be a tool in combating sexual and gender-based crimes. It is therefore important to focus on this specific treaty, as it reinforces the preventive and capacity-building aspect of the Responsibility to Protect norm and the gender justice aspect under the Women Peace and Security agenda.
The Rome Statute (RS) is the first and, so far, the only international treaty that criminalizes and explicitly defines sexual and gender-based violence as a crime against humanity beyond the act of rape (Article 7(1) g); war crimes (Article 8 (2) a (xxii)) and, to a certain extent, as genocide (Article (6) d). In this way, the Rome Statute not only ensures access to justice for women who are victims of the gravest crimes under international law, but also sets new standards for national legal systems. I think that the RS offers three main improvements in the fight against impunity for sexual and gender-based violence specifically, and therefore promoting women’s rights overall:
The Geneva Conventions do not mention rape or other sexual and gender-based violence but instead refer to them as “violations to human dignity”. Without proper definitions, there cannot be proper action. It is in this sense that the Rome Statute proves to be both progressive and innovative as it recognizes sexual and gender-based violence in all its forms. More specifically, the Rome Statute recognizes rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization as crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The second improvement is in the specific provisions of the Rome Statute in ensuring the rights of witnesses to testify in closed hearings or through special means in order to protect their privacy. The Statute safeguards the confidentiality and protection of victims throughout proceedings and in published Court documents. Additionally, the Victims and Witnesses Unit of the ICC employs experts on trauma related specifically to sexual and gender-based violence and psycho-social care. Further, the Court can neither admit evidence of a victim or witness’s prior or subsequent sexual conduct, nor require corroboration of testimony concerning sexual violence, and requires special procedures for presenting evidence related to consent to acts of sexual violence. With these groundbreaking provisions, there is further assurance that the voices of women, often overlooked in prosecutions, can finally be heard in courtrooms across the world.
The final advancement is that the Rome Statute recognizes sexual and gender-based violence as mass atrocities—mainly as war crimes and crimes against humanity, and not as collateral acts of war—which sets a new tone in the fight against impunity for these crimes while also reinforcing the RtoP norm and the WPS agenda.
My organization, the International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect (ICRtoP), a network of global civil society actors, works in partnership with governments, the United Nations and other networks such as the Global Action Against Mass Atrocity Crimes and Liberal International in promoting understanding and support of the RtoP norm. We would encourage members of Liberal International to take a leading role in promoting the Women, Peace and Security agenda and the implementation of the RtoP as a mechanism to prevent and address mass atrocities. We would encourage the members of Liberal International to join ICRtoP’s efforts in:
