Internal Armed Conflicts, Sexual Violence and ‘Grave Breaches’

From the perspective of sexual violence in internal armed conflicts, this chapter examines the question of perception of the full scope of the evil of sexual violence. For this purpose, the central focus will be the consideration of the notions of ‘grave breaches’ and ‘serious violations’, two phrases often encountered in discussions on war crimes. We have seen from both our discussions in Chapter 1 (review of the explanations for the evil of sexual violence) and in Chapter 2 (on superior responsibility), that sexual violence is a chronic feature of armed conflicts. In Chapter 1, we saw that the explanations