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and for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Court (ICC), this pattern
has gradually started to change. The emergence of these institutions has provided actors
concerned with gender equality with a unique opportunity to challenge the traditional gender
practices and assumptions upon which international humanitarian law has been based. Feminists,
and other sympathetic supporters, have taken up this opportunity and have worked to have gender
‘mainstreamed’ within these new institutions. This paper asks: how has gender mainstreaming
been reflected in these institutions? to what extent has this effort been successful in terms making
the structures and decisions of these institutions more focussed on gender equality ? And, how
can these developments be explained?
The paper commences with a brief discussion of gender mainstreaming as it has been understood
within international institutions and the objectives and limitations of this strategy. In order to
demonstrate the shift brought about through gender mainstreaming, the paper provides an account
of the way in which women have traditionally been understood under international criminal and
humanitarian law, before turning to a discussion of the engagement of gender advocates at the
two ad hoc tribunals and the ICC. The paper then outlines three hypotheses for explaining the
generally positive outcome of this engagement. In developing the argument that gender advocates
have had a relatively high degree of success in reshaping international law to make it more
gender sensitive, the paper relies on primary documents including transcripts from the ad hoc
tribunals, as well as documents from the preparatory committees for the Rome Statute of the ICC.
It also refers to speeches and papers from activists involved in the campaign to bring about
gender justice through these institutions as well as secondary analysis of these developments.
Convention