20 years after the ICC was established, the Court is poised to rule on the meaning of one of the most controversial words in its statute: ‘gender’.
Until recently, it didn’t look as if the Court would be interpreting the g-word any time soon. But in November 2017, Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda cited evidence of gender-based persecution in her request to open an investigation in Afghanistan, suggesting that the Pre-Trial Chamber would need to interpret this crime in the foreseeable future.
Jurisprudence on this point looks even more imminent now, following the arrest of Al-Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz Ag Mohamed Ag Mahmoud, who the Prosecutor alleges was the chief of the Islamic police in Timbuktu, Mali, in 2012 and 2013.
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