Journal of Law and Criminal Justice

International Criminal Law and the Protection of Women. The Evolution of a Revolution
María Torres-Perez

Abstract
The understanding and treatment in International Criminal Law of sexual or gender crimes can only be described with a term that is far from International Law, and that is REVOLUTION. In International Law, changes are often a matter of time, and time passes in slow motion. But the treatment of gender crimes has completely change in a matter of 70 years of history of International Criminal Law. From the silence and omission during the Nuremberg and Tokyo proceedings to the development of an independent category of crimes against humanity and war crimes. We, scholars, can only assert that the evolution has been outstanding. It is true that a lot of things can be done different and that the treatment of victims in international proceedings can change, but the definition of crimes, that first step to end impunity, has been remarkable. I will try to expose such evolution-revolution, from the first crimes codified in the international statutes till the present time represented by the Rome Statute for an International Criminal Court.

Full Text: PDF     DOI: 10.15640/jlcj.v8n1a1