The Gender of Justice

Sexual violence has been a widespread feature of past and present conflict. How to provide justice for these harms has now become a highly visible issue. Are we witnessing a new age of accountability for gender harms in conflict, as its advocates claim? Or does international criminal justice reproduce existing gender inequalities, as its critics argue? Is it ‘gender’ justice or gendered justice?

The Gender of Justice research group is a multi-disciplinary and international team of researchers convened by Kirsten Campbell. The group studies the ‘gender’ of international justice for sexual violence in armed conflict and asks three key research questions:

1. How can we understand conflict-related sexual violence as gendered harm?
2. How does ‘gender’ shape international criminal justice?
3. How can we build better models of ‘gender justice’?

The research group builds upon the work of the five years ‘Gender of Justice’ and TRANSFORM projects:

• The Gender of Justice project studied the ‘gender’ of international justice for conflict-related sexual violence by undertaking a unique mixed-method case study of prosecutions before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the War Crimes Chamber of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The research project developed a new ‘gender justice’ methodology for analysing patterns of conflict-related sexual violence, and the formal and informal justice practices used to address these crimes.
• The TRANSFORM project developed the Gender of Justice methodology into the Gender Justice Policy Framework, which provides an integrated package of guiding principles and tools for building better justice strategies.

Both projects were funded by the European Research Council.  (Grant Nos. 313626 and 737515).

Image credit: "Justice, 50 Fleet Street, London" by mira66 is licensed under CC BY 2.0