USA tries to block rape as War Crime?

Dancing David

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Dancing David
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Amnesty on Sexual Rights as Human Rights


The UN Comission on Human Rights affirms Sexual rights as Human rights!
"Sexual rights are human rights," Amnesty International affirmed today. "There is a long legacy of advocacy on sexuality and human rights within the UN arena that will continue until all people are free to exercise all their human rights without discrimination of any kind. The lives and security of countless people across the globe will depend on it."

The issue of sexual rights emerged as a theme cutting across several resolutions at this year's Commission. Paul Hunt, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, in his 2004 report noted that "...sexuality is a characteristic of all human beings. It is a fundamental aspect of an individual's identity. It helps to define who a person is" (E/CN.4.2004/49 paragraph 54). However, sexuality also proved the basis for attempts to deny individuals the full enjoyment of their human rights, by a small number of delegations, including USA, Egypt, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia who claim that the Special Rapporteur exceeded his mandate in addressing these issues.
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At the request of Brazil as the lead sponsor, the draft resolution on human rights and sexual orientation, which sought only to reaffirm human rights long-established in international law, was again postponed until next year's session. This resulted from opposition by a number of states questioning whether this issue belonged on the human rights agenda at all.

As in previous years, some states objected to the Commission reaffirming the obligation of states to protect the right to life of all persons under their jurisdiction, including those killed because of their sexual orientation. The resolution on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions was only adopted after this paragraph survived a vote called by Pakistan on behalf of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.

The Canadian-led resolution on the elimination of violence against women was also adopted by consensus but only after two amendments tabled by the USA had been defeated. The purpose of the draft amendments had been to weaken the language on sexual and reproductive health care services and delete language calling on states to ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which recognizes that sexual violence, including rape, can constitute a war crime or a crime against humanity.
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I can understand that GWB doesn't want abortion to become a human right but what is it about the Rome Statute that the current admisnistration objects to?
Shouldn't rape be a war crime?

PS OOOPS Looks like the issue is the International Criminal Court!
Rome Stature Web Site here
 
Dancing David said:
I can understand that GWB doesn't want abortion to become a human right but what is it about the Rome Statute that the current admisnistration objects to?
Shouldn't rape be a war crime?
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I suspect that with the large numbers of American troops posted abroad, inevitably some will commit a rape and then the US could be tried for war crimes.

I would think that there would have to be some evidence presented that troops were encouraged to do this by superiors, but you never know with the "get the US by any means available" attitude among some members of the UN.
 
Let's see...didn't the US boycott the recent UN conference on rights which excluded the forced sexual sexual slavery of women and children from its definitions of 'rights'?

Yeah, that pretty much proves that the UN is the anti slavery, anti rape champion of the world, while the US wants all of its troops to commit as many rapes as possible, with complete immunity.
:rolleyes:

Paul
 
Re: Re: USA tries to block rape as War Crime?

WildCat said:

I suspect that with the large numbers of American troops posted abroad, inevitably some will commit a rape and then the US could be tried for war crimes.

I would think that there would have to be some evidence presented that troops were encouraged to do this by superiors, but you never know with the "get the US by any means available" attitude among some members of the UN.
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However it is horrible when an individual soldier commits rape, that is not a war crime. Rape is a war crime when it is used systematically as part of a larger campaign to expel or terrorise a population.

Individuals who acted as parts of such campaigns or were in charge of such campaigns have been convicted of rape as war crimes at both Ruanda and Yugoslavia war crime tribunals. If my memory serves me right, the person convicted for rape as war crime in Ruanda was a woman.
 
I think that a war crime is when someone in the army on a war, use any of the military aparatus to commit a crime.
 
Hmm, does a war crime require x number of individuals to be killed to be a war crime?

I don't think so, killing non-combatants on purpose is a war crime, the point is to say :

Rape is Wrong, just like shooting a non-combatant.

The problem is that you have to do x number of crimes before anyone cares.
 
Rape appears to be a real issue in war, that is, there is more of it. Soldiers who are armed and know they might die at any moment seem to be under some primitive urge to ensure the survival of their genes. That is, rape.

The US does seem, however, to be hell bent on protecting even those troops who rape in peaceful times, even. Eg, Okinawa.

Crimes by U.S. soldiers
In September 1995, a school girl was abducted
and raped by three U.S. soldiers. The Okinawa prefectural
police demanded that the suspects be handed
over to Japan, but the U.S. Forces refused to do so.
This incident roused the anger of the prefecture’s people
and rallies were held in October with 92,000 people
participating from across the prefecture. They strongly
demanded the eradication of crimes by U.S. soldiers,
the revision of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA),
and the realignment and reduction of the bases.
The crime did not happen by accident. That is why
the suppressed anger of the prefecture’s people exploded.
Just after Okinawa was returned to Japan, a woman
was raped and killed (in Ginowan City in 1972); a young
man who was allowed to enter the training site to mow
the grass was run after and was shot in the arm deliberately
by U.S. soldiers with an illuminating bomb and
was severely wounded (on Iejima Island in 1974). In
the year when the rape of the school girl occurred, a
woman was beaten to death by a U.S. soldier who broke
into her room in an apartment building in Ginowan
City.
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http://www.jcp.or.jp/tokusyu/okinawa/Okinawa.pdf
 
Re: Re: Re: USA tries to block rape as War Crime?

Tanja said:
However it is horrible when an individual soldier commits rape, that is not a war crime. Rape is a war crime when it is used systematically as part of a larger campaign to expel or terrorise a population.
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As far as I know, rape has been considered a war crime for a very long time. However, generally, without the systematic part of your concept, it's the kind of war crime that individual people or perhaps platoons get charged with, not entire governments.
 
Nope, you're all wrong, wrong, wrong.

Nope, I think the real issue for the US is that the Rome Statute clearly defines "gender" as the two sexes. And we all know that we have an untold number of genders now. Not everyone's rights are protected under the ICC, that's why the US is opposed to it.

:v:

:rolleyes:
 
Re: Re: USA tries to block rape as War Crime?

WildCat said:

I suspect that with the large numbers of American troops posted abroad, inevitably some will commit a rape and then the US could be tried for war crimes.
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Tried by whom?
 
Re: Re: Re: USA tries to block rape as War Crime?

karl said:


Tried by whom?
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That seems to be the 1,000.000 question! The US objects to the establishment of the World Court and has not ratified the treaty. But then there are those arguing that Us law should not extend to Guantanamo Bay.

If a soldier commits a rape in a foriegn country they should be tried under the laws of that nation, this would be a big problem for any nation with troops in other nations, as it can be realistic and a form of reprisal.
 
Dancing David said:


I can understand that GWB doesn't want abortion to become a human right but what is it about the Rome Statute that the current admisnistration objects to?
Shouldn't rape be a war crime?

PS OOOPS Looks like the issue is the International Criminal Court!
Rome Stature Web Site here
Click to expand...

Don't you think it was a bit stupid of the Canadians to include a "red rag to a bull" issue like the ICC into a resolution on sexual rights. While I have no sympathy with the US position re the ICC it's irrelevant to the question of modifying the UN convention.

Or did the Canadians just want to force the US into association with some backward Muslims.
 
What's the exact wording of the proposal?

I suspect the reason the US opposes it is because it takes the authority of persecution out of the US military's hands and gives it to some third-party court of law.

This would be illegal under the United States Constitution.

Besides the fact that it is ALREADY illegal for a US soldier to sexually assault anyone.
 
Rape appears to be a real issue in war, that is, there is more of it. Soldiers who are armed and know they might die at any moment seem to be under some primitive urge to ensure the survival of their genes. That is, rape.

Once more, AUP's "psychological theory" of why soldiers sometimes commit rape shows he has no idea whatsoever what war is like, or what being a soldier is like. Which of course doesn't stop him from "knowing the truth" about it all.

As any soldier or veteran could tell you, his theory is about as accurate as saying "well, rape appears to be a real issue among people who post on internet message board. Posters who are anonymous who know the web site they are posting on might disappear at any moment seem to be under some primitive urge to ensure their thoughts survive. That is, raping someone and then telling the resulting child what they posted."
 
LuxFerum said:
I think that a war crime is when someone in the army on a war, use any of the military aparatus to commit a crime.
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That may define "war crime" into meaninglessness. War crimes are things like torture, deliberate extermination, or in this case, a government officially (or even unofficially) rounding up local women to provide "services" to their troops.

Some soldier raping a woman, or using a military gun to steal something, isn't comitting a war crime, but a standard one, for lack of a better phrase. Calling something a war crime should be reserved for use as an additional lever against nations. Trying to define every squeedunk thing a soldier might do wrong as a "war crime" would clearly be an attempt by detractors of the US to slap it around.
 
a_unique_person said:
Rape appears to be a real issue in war, that is, there is more of it. Soldiers who are armed and know they might die at any moment seem to be under some primitive urge to ensure the survival of their genes. That is, rape.

The US does seem, however, to be hell bent on protecting even those troops who rape in peaceful times, even. Eg, Okinawa.



http://www.jcp.or.jp/tokusyu/okinawa/Okinawa.pdf
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And yet, when a Russian diplomat gets drunk and kills someone in Washington, the US demands they release their state immunity, and the US gets it, in the name of peace. The US should do the same. Yes, they should reserve the right to keep the representative out of local hands, but that does not mean they must do so.
 
The U.S. is simply trying to preserve its sovereignty over its own citizens.
 
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