One of the important questions in international relations theory is “Why and how does change happen (if it happens at all)?” This question is especially critical in the central form of international relations, which is the conduct of war. According to the mainstream theories of international relations, particularly realism, in an anarchical world where states (the main actors in international relations) are primarily concerned about survival, war, as the ultimate resort of states, is one area where we should be deeply pessimistic about change. Why, then, do states make laws binding themselves to change the ways they conduct war? And...

The practice of pillage was essential in medieval feuds, became a weapon of European warfare by 1500, and continued to be a regular part of any war through the early eighteenth century.¹ It had had two legitimate functions: hurting the enemy and maintaining one’s own army when in charge of the enemy’s countryside.² Even Grotius, known as the father of the laws of war with his important work, The Rights of War and Peace (1625), considered normal the destruction and plunder of enemy’s property.³ He wrote:

Cicero, in the third of his Offices, declares, It is not against the Law...

The known history of rape in war goes back to Biblical times.¹ And “the prevalence of rapes committed during modern warfare has kept pace, if not exceeded, the sexual violence of ancient conflicts.”² Yet, by the twentieth century, rape continued to be as invisible as before. Soldiers who perceived women as inferior sexual objects to be dominated committed opportunistic rapes, and, according to Susan Brownmiller, who in her 1975 book wrote the groundbreaking and silence-breaking chapter on rape in war, armies often used rape as a weapon due to its effectiveness in demoralizing the enemy and giving morale to soldiers...

Rape entered into international law immediately after World War II, with the next important text of international humanitarian law after the Hague Regulations (1899, 1907), namely the Geneva Conventions (1949). After the end of World War II, at the initiative of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), another conference to write a convention on the conduct of war convened, this time to concentrate on the protection of the victims of war. The fact that the atrocities of World War II were still fresh in people’s minds contributed to the success of the conference. Fifty-nine states initially signed the...

Through their decisions in 1990s, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) set the precedents for prosecution of rape as a crime against humanity, a grave breach, a form of genocide, and, finally, a war crime. For the next legal step in the prohibition of rape, however, I examine the inclusion of rape in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Although the ICTY and the ICTR indicted¹ individuals for rape before 1998, I do not focus primarily on their work as the next steps of the legal...

Rape and pillage have been part of war throughout human history. Victors in wars had free rein with regard to property, and they pillaged women and goods accordingly. For General Andrew Jackson, “booty and beauty”¹ were the rewards of war. When it came to prohibiting rape and pillage, however, the sequence of rape and pillage was reversed: pillage and, a century later, rape. The puzzle that drove this project came out of this historical fact: rape and pillage were closely associated and similarly justified as weapons of war, yet delegitimized and prohibited a century apart. Why did the prohibition regime...