A Fair Representation: Advocating for Women’s Rights in the
International Criminal Court

This case tracks the efforts over the past decade of women's human rights advocates to promote broader international legal protections against serious gender-based crimes. The case focuses on the Women's Caucus for Gender Justice, a transnational advocacy network that successfully lobbied the drafters of the statute creating the International Criminal Court to recognize rape, sexual slavery, enforced pregnancy, and other gender-based violence as specific crimes within the Court's jurisdiction. The Women's Caucus also worked to promote equal representation of women as judges on the Court. The case invites students to view the work of women's advocates in the ICC drafting process in the context of recent history of the international women's human rights movement and to consider what strategies the movement should used to implement the legal standards gained in the ICC process, specifically regarding the election of women judges. Students will learn that war crimes against women historically received little attention in international law and prohibitions against sexual violence were couched in language about protecting "family honor." Students will also learn about the tensions that sometimes exist between women's advocates and the larger human rights movement when there is a situation in which the latter are concerned that by pushing gender issues too far, women's advocates will risk the very adoption of the ICC Statute. The decision point for the case is the strategy discussion by the Women's Caucus for Gender Justice regarding the procedural rules for electing women to the new Court. Two camps had formed regarding the rules--one favoring quotas and the other favoring open nominations by States. The students must discuss what position they will take in the procedural discussion, keeping in mind considerations of whether they have enough leverage to achieve their position, whether their position will alienate the broader human rights community and whether they will be able to effectively promote women candidates for the Court, no matter what the rules will be.

Case (pdf)