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Manhood Deprived and (Re)constructed during Conflicts and International Prosecutions: The Curious Case of the Prosecutor v. Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta et al.

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Abstract

Recent case law on sexual violence crimes heard before the ad hoc international criminal tribunals and courts, that interpret them in connection with ethnic conflict, raises the question of which acts can be defined as sexual violence. The International Criminal Court (ICC), in the situation of Kenya, does not regard acts of forced nudity, forcible circumcision and penile amputation as sexual violence when they are motivated by ethnic prejudice and intended to demonstrate the cultural superiority of one tribe over another. The Court argues that not every act of violence that targets parts of the body commonly associated with sexuality should be considered an act of sexual violence. This recent interpretation of what counts as sexual violence provides another example of the complicity of international criminal law institutions in the ongoing construction process of female subordination. The ICC, in the Kenya situation, implicitly confirms the mutilation of female agency by interpreting penile amputation as a kind of power game between males, and by instrumentalizing the male sexual organ as an indicator of masculinity and manhood.

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Notes

  1. Kenya, a state party to the Rome Statute since 2005, is one of the eight situations the ICC is currently investigating with three ongoing trials. The case against Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta, President of the Republic of Kenya, has caused significant tension between the ICC and the African Union (AU) due to its being the first trial of a sitting Head of State before the Court. Kenyatta was allegedly criminally responsible as an indirect co-perpetrator pursuant to article 25(3)(a) of the Rome Statute for the crimes against humanity of murder (article 7(l)(a)), deportation or forcible transfer (article 7(l)(d)), rape (article 7(l)(g)), persecution (articles 7(l)(h)), and other inhumane acts (article 7(l)(k)). Amidst controversial statements from the AU leaders, the ICC Trial Chamber V(b) initially vacated the trial commencement date on 19 September 2014, and then on 3 December 2014 rejected the Prosecution’s request for further adjournment. Finally, on 5 December 2014, the Prosecution filed a notice to withdraw charges against Kenyatta. Despite the tension that has arisen out of the trial of the Kenyan President Kenyatta who would be the first sitting Head of State to face charges of crimes against humanity before the ICC were it not for its withdrawal decision, the judicial decisions regarding the situation in Kenya as well as other situations contribute to the development of case law in international criminal law.

  2. Decision on the Confirmation of Charges Pursuant to Article 61(7) (a) and (b) of the Rome Statute, 23 January 2012, International Criminal Court, ICC-01/09-02/11 [hereinafter Decision 23 January 2012].

  3. Decision 23 January 2012, para. 265.

  4. Decision 23 January 2012, para. 266.

  5. Women, Peace and Security: Study submitted by the Secretary-General pursuant to Security Council resolution 1325 (2000), para. 59, available at http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/public/eWPS.pdf. See also UN Security Council Resolution No. 1325 (S/RES/1325) (31 October 2000), and UN Security Council Resolution, Women and Peace and Security, (U.N. Doc. S/RES/1820) (19 June 2008).

  6. Prosecutor v. Kunarac et al., 22 February 2001, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, IT-96-23-T & IT-96-23/1-T, para. 457 [hereinafter Prosecutor v. Kunarac et al.].

  7. Article 46 of the 1907 Hague Convention (IV), Article 27 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949), and Article 76(1) of Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 1977 (Protocol I) are the primary international law instruments connecting the attack to the “honour” of the victims of rape and sexual assault.

  8. While the side-effect discourse regards rape and other forms of sexual violence as a permanent and inevitable part of warfare, therefore unpunishable (Balthazar 2006, 44), the growing tendency with regards to sex crimes when committed during international or internal armed conflicts is to conceive of them as a strategic weapon designed to defeat and even to annihilate the enemy (Leatherman 2011; Rittner and Roth 2012; Stiglmayer 1994).

  9. Prosecutor v. Celebici, 16 November 1998, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, IT-96-21-T, para. 448 [hereinafter Prosecutor v. Celebici]. See also Prosecutor v. Kunarac et al., para. 311.

  10. Prosecutor v. Kunarac et al., paras. 43, 583, 592.

  11. Prosecutor v. Celebici, para. 928; Prosecutor v. Kunarac et al., paras. 322, 342; Prosecutor v. Lukic & Lukic, 20 July 2009, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, IT-98-32/1-T, para. 695; Prosecutor v. Brdanin, 1 September 2004, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, IT-99-36-T, para. 1011 [hereinafter Prosecutor v. Brdanin].

  12. Prosecutor v. Jean Paul Akayesu, 2 September 1998, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, ICTR–96-4-T, para. 732 [hereinafter Prosecutor v. Akayesu].

  13. Prosecutor v. Musema, 27 January 2000, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, ICTR-96-13-A, para. 933.

  14. Prosecutor v. Issa Hassan Sesay, Morris Kallon and Augustine Gbao, 2 March 2009, Special Court for Sierra Leone, SCSL-04-15-T, paras. 1291–1297, 1459–1473, 1581–1582. The SCSL takes an even further step by replacing the term “forced marriage” with “conjugal slavery” in the Taylor case (Prosecutor v. Taylor, 18 May 2012, Special Court for Sierra Leone, SCSL-03-01-T, paras. 428–30.) The SSCL, on the other hand, is criticised for silencing women by excluding evidence of sexual violence during the Civil Defence Forces (CDF) case. See Kelsall and Stepakoff (2007), and Oosterveld (2009).

  15. Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 17 July 1998, UN Doc. A/CONF. 183/9, 2187 U.N.T.S. 3.

  16. Elements of Crimes of the International Criminal Court, ICC-ASP/1/3 at 108, U.N. Doc. PCNICC/2000/1/Add.2 (2000).

  17. Decision on the Confirmation of Charges, Situation in the Democratic Republic the Congo in the Case of Prosecutor v. Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, 30 September 2008, International Criminal Court, ICC-01/04-01/07, para. 432 [hereinafter Decision 30 September 2008].

  18. Decision Pursuant to Article 15 of the Rome Statute on the Authorization of an Investigation into the Situation in the Republic of Kenya, 31 March 2010, International Criminal Court, ICC-01/09-19, para. 155 [hereinafter Decision 31 March 2010].

  19. Decision Pursuant to Article 15 of the Rome Statute on the Authorization of an Investigation into the Situation in the Republic of Cote d’Ivoire, 3 October 2011, International Criminal Court, ICC-02/11-14, para. 72 [hereinafter Decision 3 October 2011].

  20. Decision 3 October 2011, para. 69.

  21. Decision Pursuant to Article 61(7)(a) and (b) of the Rome Statute on the Charges of the Prosecutor Against Bosco Ntaganda, 9 June 2014, International Criminal Court, ICC-01/04-02/06, para. 36.

  22. Decision on the Prosecutor's Application for a Warrant of Arrest against Jean Pierre Bemba Gombo (Prosecutor v. Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo), 10 June 2008, International Criminal Court, ICC-01/05-01/08, para. 1 [hereinafter Bemba Warrant Decision].

  23. Decision Pursuant to Article 61(7)(1) and (b) of the Rome Statute on the Charges against jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo (Prosecutor v. Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo),15 June 2009, International Criminal Court, ICC/01/05-01/08-424, paras. 204, 310 [Bemba Charging Decision].

  24. Making a Statement: A Review of Charges and Prosecutions for Gender-based Crimes before the International Criminal Court, 25 February 2010, 2d ed., Women's Initiatives for Gender Justice, p. 30, http://iccwomen.org/publications/articles/docs/MaS2_10-10_web.pdf, [hereinafter Making a Statement].

  25. Making a Statement, p. 30. On the other hand, writers such as Bedont and Hall-Martinez (1999, 70); Buss (2007); Charlesworth (1999, 387), and Hagay-Frey (2011) have criticized the ICC for its association of sexual violence with the ethnic dimensions of the conflicts.

  26. Bemba Charging Decision, para. 159.

  27. Decision 31 March 2010.

  28. Decision 23 January 2012, para. 258.

  29. Decision 23 January 2012, para. 259.

  30. Decision 23 January 2012, paras. 260–261.

  31. Decision 23 January 2012, para. 264.

  32. Decision 23 January 2012, paras. 265–266.

  33. Prosecutor v. Furundzija, 10 December 1998, IT-95-17/1-T, para. 186 [hereinafter Prosecutor v. Furundzija]; Prosecutor v. Stakic, 31 July 2003, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, IT-97-24-T, para. 757.

  34. Prosecutor v. Brdanin, paras. 516, 1013. The Furundzija Trial Chamber finds that being forced to watch serious sexual attacks inflicted on a female acquaintance is torture for the forced observer (Prosecutor v. Furundzija, para. 267). The Brdanin Trial Chamber confirms this approach when it states that threatening the male members of these groups that “their mothers and sisters would be raped in front of them” is part of the ill-treatment, which signifies the constant humiliation and degradation as an element of torture (Prosecutor v. Brdanin, para. 1018). In Prosecutor v. Kvocka et al., the Trial Chamber stresses, inter alia, that “[t]he presence of onlookers, particularly family members, also inflicts severe mental harm amounting to torture on the person being raped” (Prosecutor v. Kvocka et al., 2 November 2001, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, IT-98-30/1-T, para. 149).

  35. Prosecutor v. Cesic, 11 March 2004, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, IT-95-10/1-S, paras. 13, 14, 35.

  36. Prosecutor v. Todorovic, 31 July 2001, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, IT-95-9/1-S, paras. 39–40.

  37. Prosecutor v. Krajisnik, 27 September 2006, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, IT-00-39-T, para. 800.

  38. Prosecutor v. Tadic, 7 May 1997, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, IT-94-1-T, para. 206.

  39. Prosecutor v. Krstic, 2 August 2001, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, IT-98-33-T, para. 91.

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Acknowledgements

I am using this opportunity to express my gratitude to Dr. Tore Fougner for his support and guidance throughout this work.

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  1. Department of International Relations, Faculty of Economics, Administrative and Social Sciences, Bilkent University, Main Campus, Bilkent, 06800, Ankara, Turkey

    Gözde Turan

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Turan, G. Manhood Deprived and (Re)constructed during Conflicts and International Prosecutions: The Curious Case of the Prosecutor v. Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta et al. . Fem Leg Stud 24, 29–47 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10691-016-9313-0

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