Fair Labelling and the Dilemma of Prosecuting Gender-Based Crimes at the International Criminal Tribunals

Hilmi M. Zawati is Chair of the International Centre for Legal Accountability and Justice (ICLAJ), an international criminal law jurist, and human rights advocate. He has been a committed human rights activist over the last three decades, and has actively advocated human rights of wartime rape victims throughout the world ever since the first reports of war crimes during the Yugoslav dissolution war of 1992-1995. A prominent speaker and author on a number of hotly debated legal issues, Dr. Zawati has addressed major academic and professional groups in the Middle East, Africa, Europe, the United States, and Canada. His present primary research and teaching areas are: public international law; international criminal law; international humanitarian and human rights law; international gender justice system; international environmental law of armed conflict; social diversity and the law; judicial mechanisms under universal jurisdiction; and Islamic law of nations (siyar).

"A masterly review of the prosecution of gender-based crimes in the ad hoc tribunals and the International Criminal Court (ICC), this work comes with a wealth of research and references reflecting an in-depth and wide ranging compilation of diverse views and studies. I have no doubt this work will add to the development of international criminal law and be of great assistance to judges and practitioners alike." -Justice T. A. Doherty CBE, Special Court for Sierra Leone, The Hague, Netherlands

"This book is essential reading for anyone interested in international criminal justice. It presents a coherent conceptual framework for defining and prosecuting gender-based crimes." -Rebecca Cook, Professor of Law, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto

"There is no other work examining the prosecution of gender related crimes that comes close to fleshing out the fair labelling issues that Hilmi Zawati discusses. A unique contribution to the literature, this work provides thought-provoking reading, and highlights a neglected gap in the field of international criminal law." -Kelly Dawn Askin, Senior Legal Officer, International Justice Open Society Justice Initiative

"By exploring the 'fair labelling principle' with regard to sexual violence crimes, Zawati brings in a new and welcome addition to the existing literature on this topic." -Anne-Marie de Brouwer, Associate Professor, Tilburg Law School

"This timely and critical landmark analysis, brilliantly analyzes the basic laws and jurisprudence of the international criminal tribunals and courts on wartime gender-based crimes with reference to the legal principle of fair labelling. In his cutting edge work, Dr. Zawati lays the foundation stone of what he calls the theory of "fair proportionality" between punishment and crime, and emphasizes that the abstractness and lack of a precise definition of wartime gender-based crimes in the statutory laws of the international criminal tribunals and courts violate the principle of fair labelling, and lead to disproportion between offences and penalties." - Journal of Rights (Majallat al-Huqooq), Issue No. 1, Volume 38 (2014), pp. 709-717. (Arabic).

"Fair Labelling and the Dilemma of Prosecuting Gender-Based Crimes at the International Criminal Tribunals presents a thorough analysis of the prosecution of gender based crime at the international courts and tribunals, and offers a framework for reconceptualising, defining and labelling gender based crimes that can aid the reformulation of the tribunal's laws. It will be of great interest to international lawyers, judges and scholars." -Eithne Dowds, Queen's University, Belfast, Journal of Feminist Legal Studies, Vol. 22, Issue 57