Wartime Sexual Violence Against Men: Making Sense of the Silences in Cambodia’s War Crimes Tribunal

June 17, 2021
Other Event in Australia

The Sydney Southeast Asia Centre of the University of Sydney will organize a webinar titled “Wartime Sexual Violence Against Men: Making Sense of the Silences in Cambodia’s War Crimes Tribunal” which will be held on June 17, 2021, at 5:00 pm (Sydney Time) or 2:00 pm (Bangkok/Jakarta Time).

Join Dr. Rosemary Grey for an insight into the prosecution of wartime sexual violence in the International Criminal Court and Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia.
Following a long tradition of critical legal scholarship, Dr. Rosemary Grey’s research investigates the historical and social forces that shape how law is made, interpreted, and applied. In this talk, she applies this critical lens to an ongoing war crimes trial in the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC).

Based in Phnom Penh, and run by the United Nations and the Cambodian government, the ECCC is mandated to prosecute crimes committed in the 1970s by the so-called “Khmer Rouge.” In 2019, it convicted two surviving Khmer Rouge leaders for their role in these crimes, which included war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. At over 1,000 pages, the judgment presents a detailed account of the Khmer Rouge period, but there are gaps. These include silences around sexual violence against men, which will be the focus of this webinar. Dr Rosemary Grey will consider the following questions: what traditions in international law contributed to this “blind spot” in the judgment, and what role did Cambodian law and culture play in this respect?

This talk draws on an article that Dr. Rosemary Grey is co-authoring with Kum Somaly, a Cambodian human rights advocate, and Professor Sarah Williams, an international law expert at the University New South Wales.

To register for this webinar, click here.