This website lays out the timeline for how a coalition of organizations and universities led by Professor Lisa Davis of the Human Rights and Gender Justice Clinic at CUNY School of Law worked to remove the outdated definition of gender adopted from the Rome Statute in the draft Crimes Against Humanity treaty. It also tracks the continuation of that work as the draft treaty slowly makes its way through the United Nations.

Prof. Davis, pulled together a coalition of organizations and universities. This Coalition sought to ensure that the draft treaty reflected the progress made since the Rome Convention and not adopt the outdated definition of gender. By December 2018, the Coalition was successful in organizing hundreds of civil society members, states and UN experts who made their voices heard to the Commission and called for the removal or revision of the definition of gender.

Chapter in: Gender and International Criminal Law, Valerie Oosterveld, Indira Rosenthal, and Susana SáCouto, eds. (Oxford Univ. Press, 2022)

Authors discuss how the Rome Statute’s opaque and outdated definition of gender has hindered accountability for gender-based crimes and explain how a coalition of advocates prevented its inclusion into the proposed treaty on crimes against humanity.

Open Democracy

This essay discusses how the outdated definition of gender adopted from the Rome Statute was dropped from the final draft of the crimes against humanity treaty, affirming the rights of all people.

Open Democracy

This post documents the dangers of including the outdated definition of gender adopted from the Rome Statute in the crimes against humanity treaty.

Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG) Expert Roundtable

Experts discuss the severe deprivation of fundamental rights under element one of the Rome Statute through a comparative perspective, focusing on conflicts in Afghanistan and Colombia as examples. Speakers outlined what constitutes a severe deprivation of a fundamental right and how such crimes highlight the longstanding structural discrimination women, girls and LGBTQI+ persons experience. Speakers include: Richard Bennet, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of Human Rights in Afghanistan; Ana Elena Abello Jiménez, Legal Officer, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (Colombia); and Emily Kenney, a Policy Specialist, Rule of Law and Transitional Justice at UN Women.

Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG) Expert Roundtable

Panelists discuss the development and legal analysis of the ICC policy paper on the crime of gender persecution, including how it will guide the ICC Office of the Prosecutor and the ways governments and civil society can utilize the text in national and local settings. Speakers include: Michelle Jarvis, Deputy Head of the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (Syria) (IIIM); René Urueña, Professor of Law at Universidad de Los Andes (Colombia); and Dr. Yvonne Dutton, Professor of Law at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law.

Volume One: Gender Persecution in Afghanistan: A Crime Against Humanity

This report provides in-depth analysis of the Taliban’s acts to deprive Afghans of fundamental rights on the basis of gender – acts that may amount to the crime against humanity of gender persecution. This volume examines the severe deprivation of the fundamental rights to education, assembly, and expression.