PhD Project for Anna Gopsill
The research project aims to analyse the use of wartime sexual violence against men (SVAM) as a politicised weapon of war in Bosnia-Herzegovina (1992-1995) and Rwanda (1994). By tracing verdicts from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), the project will examine both how sexual violence was perpetrated and what happened in the aftermath of the conflict. Through this project, I will provide a mapping of SVAM, based on the court transcripts from the ICTY and ICTR and interviews with practitioners. The tribunals are both pioneering ad-hoc criminal tribunals that let to the establishment of the permanent International Criminal Courts (ICC). Importantly, both courts were instrumental in recognising rape as a weapon of war, and acknowledged SVAM as a form of abuse in its own right. Despite vast research addressing the conflicts and tribunals, the transcripts from both tribunals are largely ignored, and have not been systematically analysed in the context of SVAM.
The three main research questions are:
- What form did SVAM take in Rwanda and Bosnia-Herzegovina?
- How did the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda address SVAM?
- The legacies of the tribunals: what is happening now?