Sex Crimes in Armed Conflicts

a Brief History in Light of Feminist Approaches

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the historical context of sexual crimes for International Law in the period of the 2nd World War and its post- war developments. It also seeks to point out the treatment given by the Federal Military Justice in Brazil to sexual crimes committed by military members of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force (FEB) during that conflict. A bibliographical study was carried out of books, articles and theses that dealt with the theme, with a time frame from 1945 to 2017, covering the trials in Nuremberg, Tokyo, former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. This study took the feminist approaches of Charlesworth, Chinkin and Wright as a methodological basis for historical analysis in International Law. These authors reveal the importance of the development of feminist jurisprudence for legal theory in international law and propose a critical look at the structures that apparently, they are universal and neutral in this discipline. Thus, in order to provide a critical look at the beginnings of accountability for sexual crimes in International Criminal Law after 1945, feminist bibliographic references will be used, such as Alona Hagay-Frey and Claudia Paiva Carvalho: This examination intends to demonstrate that accountability for these crimes committed, especially against women, in periods of armed conflict, still has a long way to go in international law in search of effective justice.