Crimes Of Consent: Role of the Element of Consent in defining a Crime of Rape under International Criminal Law

Sa？etak This paper will discuss the difficulties emerging under international law with the creation of a definition of a crime of rape. Crime of rape has been criminalized in most of the national criminal codes as an act of intentional sexual penetration by force without a consent. However, the national definitions cannot be easily transposed on international level as they do not reflect the reality of the circumstances occurring in an international context. Rape occurring in the context of a war crimes, crimes against humanity and as a mean of genocide represents a situation in which genuine consent to a sexual act cannot deemed to be given. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to describe how the international community developed a contemporary definition of a crime of rape, the setbacks it has faced with specific elements that would usually constituted a crime of rape and the importance of recognizing special circumstances in which these crimes occur under international criminal law, both for the international justice and the victims