Law Reform and the Ending Impunity for Honor Crimes: Creating Legal Precedents to Reform the Iraqi Penal Code
The Iraqi High Tribunal is pioneering a framework for addressing gender based violence in Iraq, the Middle East, and beyond, furthering the jurisprudence on gender based war crimes developed at the ICTY and ICTR and the International Criminal Court Rome Statute. The Iraqi Tribunal is applying, for the first time in the region, international law on gender crimes (with a reference to the Iraqi penal code for penalties), including CEDAW and 1325. In order for there to be consistency, the Tribunal decisions must lead to the reformation of the Iraq Penal Code, which currently provides for mitigated sentences if a murder is an honor killing and no penalties for rape if the rapist marries the victim. The Global Justice Center is working with Iraqi women to see that the Iraqi High Tribunal is the first judicial body in the world to use 1325 as a binding legal requirement, and as such, creating groundbreaking legal precedents on 1325 and justice for women.
Transitional justice processes are important not only to document war crimes and other mass violations of human rights but they are also important as a means of law and policy reform. As new societies and governments are forming, not only must constitutions institutionalize gender balanced law but those who interpret the law must also be sensitive to their role in enforcing protections of women. In Iraq, the Center has worked to use sexual violence provisions from the Iraqi High Tribunal Statute to develop domestic law and policy reform initiatives.