The impossibility of bearing witness: Wartime rape and the promise of justice

Violence Against Women

Volumn 16, Issue 10, 2010, Pages 1098-1119

  Henry, Nicola ^a  

^a LA TROBE UNIVERSITY   (Australia)

Author keywords

testimony; trauma; wartime rape

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; FEMALE; HEALTH; HUMAN; INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION; INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION; LEGAL ASPECT; LITERATURE; PATIENT ADVOCACY; PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT; RAPE; STATISTICS; SURVIVOR; UNITED NATIONS; VERBAL COMMUNICATION; VICTIM; WAR; WAR CRIME; WOMEN'S RIGHTS;

ANECDOTES AS TOPIC; CRIME VICTIMS; FEMALE; HUMANS; INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION; NARRATION; PATIENT ADVOCACY; RAPE; SURVIVORS; TRUTH DISCLOSURE; UNITED NATIONS; WAR; WAR CRIMES; WOMEN'S RIGHTS; WORLD HEALTH;

EID: 78049325880     PISSN: 10778012     EISSN: 15528448     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/1077801210382860     Document Type: Article

References (70)

1. Agamben, G. (1999). Remnants of Auschwitz: The witness and the archive (D. Heller-Roazen, Trans.). New York: Zone Books.
2. American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed., text revision). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.
3. Antze, P., & Lambek, M. (Eds.). (1996). Tense past: Cultural essays in trauma and memory. New York: Routledge.
4. Appelbaum, P. S., Uyehara, L. A., & Elin, M. R. (Eds.). (1997). Trauma and memory: Clinical and legal controversies. New York: Oxford University Press.
5. Arendt, H. (1993). Between past and future: Eight exercises in political thought. New York: Penguin.
6. Asia Watch and Physicians for Human Rights. (1993). Rape in Kashmir: A crime of war (A Human Rights Watch short report no. 5). New York: Human Rights Watch.
7. Askin, K.D. (1999). Sexual violence in decisions and indictments of the Yugoslav and Rwandan tribunals: Current status. American Journal of International Law, 93, 97-123.
8. Berger, V. (1977). Man's trial, woman's tribulation: Rape cases in the courtroom. Columbia Law Review, 77, 1-103.
9. Bristow, A.R. (1984). State v. Marks: An analysis of expert testimony on rape trauma syndrome. Victimology, 9, 273-281.
10. Brown, W. (1995). States of injury: Power and freedom in late modernity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
11. Burgess, A.W., & Holmstrom, L.L. (1974). Rape trauma syndrome. American Journal of Psychiatry, 131, 981-986.
12. Bushby, K. (1997). Discriminatory uses of personal records in sexual violence cases. Canadian Journal of Women and the Law, 9, 148-178.
13. Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York: Routledge.
14. Campbell, K. (2002). Legal memories: Sexual assault, memory, and international humanitarian law. Signs, 28, 149-178.
15. Campbell, K. (2004). The trauma of justice: Sexual violence, crimes against humanity and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Social Legal Studies, 13, 329-350.
16. Caruth, C. (Ed.). (1995). Trauma: Explorations in memory. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
17. Caruth, C. (1996). Unclaimed experience: Trauma, narrative, and history. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
18. Čelebići Transcript. (1997). The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Retrieved November 2, 2009, from http://www.icty.org/case/mucic/4#trans.
19. Coalition for Women's Human Rights in Conflict Situations. (1998). Amicus curiae brief respecting the decision and order of the Tribunal of 16 July 1998 requesting that the Tribunal reconsider its decision having regard to the rights of Witness A to equality, privacy and security of the person and to representation by counsel. Retrieved November 2, 2009, from http://www.womensrightscoalition.org/site/advocacyDossiers/formerYugoslavia/Furundzija/amicusbrief.php.
20. Colvin, C.J. (2004). Ambivalent narrations: Pursuing the political through traumatic storytelling. Political and Legal Anthropology Review, 27, 72-89.
21. Conley, J.M., & O'Barr, W.M. (1998). Just words: Law, language and power. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
22. Douglas, L. (2001). The memory of judgment: Making law and history in the trials of the Holocaust. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
23. Estrich, S. (1987). Real rape. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
24. Felman, S. (2002). The juridical unconscious: Trials and traumas in the twentieth century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
25. Figley, C. R. (Ed.). (1985). Trauma and its wake. New York: Brunner/Mazel.
26. Finley, L.M. (1989). Breaking women's silence in law: The dilemma of the gendered nature of legal reasoning. Notre Dame Law Review, 64, 886-910.
27. Foa, E.B., Molnar, C., & Cashman, L. (1995). Changes in rape narratives during exposure therapy for posttraumatic stress disorder. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 8, 675-690.
28. Foča Indictment. (1996). The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Retrieved November 2, 2009, from http://www.icty.org/case/kunarac/4#ind.
29. Foča Transcript. (2000). The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Retrieved November 2, 2009, from http://www.icty.org/case/kunarac/4#trans.
30. Furundžija Indictment. (1998). The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Retrieved November 2, 2009, from http://www.icty.org/case/furundzija/4#ind.
31. Furundžija Judgment. (1998). The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Retrieved November 2, 2009, from http://www.icty.org/case/furundzija/4#tjug.
32. Furundžija Transcript. (1998). The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Retrieved November 2, 2009, from http://www.icty.org/case/furundzija/4#trans.
33. Frazier, P.A., & Borgida, E. (1992). Rape trauma syndrome: A review of case law and psychological research. Law and Human Behavior, 16, 293-311.
34. Giller, J.E. (1998). Caring for victims of torture in Uganda: Some personal reflections. In P. J. Bracken & C. Petty (Eds.), Rethinking the trauma of war (pp. 128-145). London: Free Association Books.
35. Hansen, L. (2001). Gender, nation, rape: Bosnia and the construction of security. International Journal of Feminist Politics, 3, 55-75.
36. Henry, N. (2009). Witness to rape: The limits and potential of international war crimes trials for victims of wartime sexual violence. International Journal of Transitional Justice, 3, 114-134.
37. Herman, J.L. (2001). Trauma and recovery: The aftermath of violence from domestic abuse to political terror. London: Pandora.
38. Integrated Regional Information Networks. (2007). The shame of war: Sexual violence against women and girls in conflict. Retrieved November 2, 2009, from http://www.un-ngls.org/spip.php?page=article_s&id_article=254.
39. Jackson, M. (2002). The politics of storytelling: Violence, transgression and intersubjectivity. Copenhagen, Denmark: Museum Tusculanum.
40. Jacobson, M., & Jelincic, K. (Directors). (1996). Calling the ghosts: A story about rape, war and women [35-mm documentary film]. New York: Women Make Movies.
41. Kansteiner, W. (2004). Genealogy of a category mistake: A critical intellectual history of the cultural trauma metaphor. Rethinking History, 2, 193-221.
42. Kapur, R. (2002). The tragedy of victimization rhetoric: Resurrecting the native subject in international/post-colonial feminist legal politics. Harvard Human Rights Journal, 15, 1-37.
43. Laplanche, J., & Pontalis, J.B. (1973). The language of psycho-analysis (D. Nicholson-Smith, Trans.). New York: W. W. Norton. (Original work published 1967).
44. Levi, P. (1987). If this is a man/the truce (S. Woolf, Trans.). London: Abacus. (Original work published 1958).
45. Leys, R. (2000). Trauma: A genealogy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
46. Lobwein, W. (2006). Experiences of the victims and witnesses section at the ICTY. In U. Ewald & K. Turković (Eds.), Large-scale victimisation as a potential source of terrorist activities: Importance of regaining security in post-conflict societies (NATO Security Through Science Series, E: Human and Societal Dynamics, pp. 197-207). Amsterdam: IOS Press.
47. Lund, M., Foy, D.W., Sipprelle, C., & Strachan, A. (1984). The combat exposure scale: A systematic assessment of trauma in the Vietnam War. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 40, 1323-1328.
48. Lusby, K. (1994). Hearing the invisible women of political rape. University of Toledo Law Review, 25, 911-954.
49. Lyotard, J.F. (1988). The differend: Phrases in dispute (G. Van Den Abbeele, Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. (Original work published 1983).
50. Mardorossian, C.M. (2002). Toward a new feminist theory of rape. Signs, 27, 743-755.
51. Mertus, J. (2004). Shouting from the bottom of the well: The impact of international trials for wartime rape on women's agency. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 6, 110-128.
52. Nadelson, C.C., Notman, M.T., Zackson, H., & Gornick, J.C. (1982). A follow-up study of rape victims. American Journal of Psychiatry, 139, 1266-1270.
53. Prosecutor v. Anto Furundžija, No. IT-95-17/1-T (1999).
54. Prosecutor v. Dragoljub Kunarac, Radomir Kovač, Zoran Vuković, No. IT-96-23-T & IT-96-23/1-T (2002).
55. Prosecutor v. Jean-Paul Akayesu, No. ICTR-96-4-T (1998).
56. Prosecutor v. Zejnil Delalić, Zdravko Mucić, Hazim Delić, Esad Landžo, No. IT-96-21-T (1998).
57. Radstone, S. (2005). Reconceiving binaries: The limits of memory. History Workshop Journal, 59, 134-150.
58. Raitt, F.E., & Zeedyk, M.S. (2003). False memory syndrome: Undermining the credibility of complainants in sexual offenses. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 26, 453-471.
59. Ruff-O'Herne, J. (2008). Fifty year of silence. Sydney, Australia: William Heinemann.
60. Rules of Procedure and Evidence, UN Doc. IT/32/Rev.43 (last amended 24 July 2009). Retrieved August 16, 2010, from http://www.icty.org/sid/136.
61. Sarat, A., Davidovitch, N., & Alberstein, M. (Eds.). (2007). Trauma and memory: Reading, healing, and making law. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
62. Scarry, E. (1985). The body in pain: The making and unmaking of the world. New York: Oxford University Press.
63. Shklar, J. (1990). The face of injustice. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
64. Smart, C. (1989). Feminism and the power of the law. London: Routledge.
65. Sparr, L.F., & Bremner, J.D. (2005). Post-traumatic stress disorder and memory: Prescient medicolegal testimony at the international war crimes tribunal? Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 33, 71-78.
66. Stover, E. (2005). The witnesses: War crimes and the promise of justice in The Hague. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
67. Sutherland, S., & Scherl, D.J. (1970). Patterns of response among victims of rape. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 40, 503-511.
68. Ussher, J.M. (1992). Women's madness: Misogyny or mental illness? Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
69. Van der Kolk, B.A., & Fisler, R. (1995). Dissociation and the fragmentary nature of traumatic memories: Overview and exploratory study. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 8, 505-525.
70. Walker, L.E. (1989). Terrifying love: Why battered women kill and how society responds. New York: Harper & Row.