Using the WCRO/WILP Gender Jurisprudence Collections

Introduction

The Gender Jurisprudence Collections (GJC) includes judgments, decisions, orders, and other documents relating to the treatment of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) issued by eleven of the international/ized courts and tribunals included in the WCRO’s broader Jurisprudence Collections. It does not include submissions by the parties and others involved in the cases. Although you may conduct a general search of the WCRO Jurisprudence Collections, the GJC allows researchers to search the jurisprudence solely for documents containing gender-specific issues and keywords. This jurisprudence has been catalogued and coded based on a review of the documents for any SGBV issues, eliminating the need for researchers to sift through irrelevant documents when conducting a search for these issues within the international/ized courts and tribunals. You may search one tribunal, or you may search across several tribunals.

Search Fields: Overview

Currently, there are twenty-six search fields that you may use to customize your search in the GJC. There are three search fields where you may input your own term or range of terms. Additionally, several of the fields contain drop-down menus that allow you to conduct a more precise search; for example, one of these drop-down menus eliminates the possibility that you may misspell a defendant’s name if you wish to conduct a search by using a defendant’s name. The majority of the fields are simple "yes" or "no" queries.

Fields That Allow You to Input Your Own Term or Range of Terms

  • Case Number
  • Date Document Issued
  • Notes

Fields with Drop-Down Menus

  • Accused
  • Document Type
  • Gender Keywords
  • Proceeding Stage
  • Tribunal

Fields with Yes/No Queries

  • Female Accused
  • Female Defense Counsel
  • Female Prosecutor
  • Female Civil Party Lawyer
  • Female Judge
  • Female Witness
  • Female Victim
  • Gender-Based Expertise Discussed
  • Plea Agreement
  • Acquittal for Gender-Based Charge(s)
  • Conviction for Gender-Based Charge(s)
  • Gender-Based Conviction Reversed
  • Late Gender-Based Charge(s)
  • Dropped Gender-Based Charge(s)
  • Female Victim Applicant
  • Female Victim Participant
  • Female Reparations Applicant
  • Gender Issue

When conducting a search, any applicable hits will appear on your computer screen, coded with all of the relevant information. Where the information is unknown for a particular field, the field is left blank and will not be coded. A field is also left blank where it does not apply to a particular document. For example, if a sexual violence or gender-based crime was not charged in the indictment, there will not be a "No" in the fields that address whether a sexual charge was dropped or whether there was a conviction, acquittal, or reversal for a gender-based crime - rather, the field will be left blank.

The items in your search result - each of which will have a direct link to a PDF of the actual document - will include the title of the document followed by all the information we have coded relevant to that document. An example of how your search result may look is pasted as a screen shot here:

Explanation of Specific Search Fields

Many of the search fields are self-explanatory. However, there are several fields that we have developed that are explained in further detail below:

Gender Keywords: The Gender Keywords are coded only when the exact word(s) or phrase(s) that appear in the drop-down menu are used by the court or tribunal in its jurisprudence. As you will see when you use the drop-down menu, we have a limited scope of keywords. We identified these keywords through reviews of both academic literature and the language used by the various international bodies in their jurisprudence.

Gender Issue: We realize that, at times, the jurisprudence may not contain the exact word or phrase used in our drop-down menu. Notably, the database still captures this information. If there is a SGBV issue not covered by the Gender Keywords, it will still come up in a search for documents containing a Gender Issue. For example, a document may contain a fact pattern where the court describes that a woman was given as a "wife" to a rebel leader, but the term "forced marriage" is never used. In this situation, even though the document does not contain one of the specific keywords, it will be coded as a "yes" for Gender Issue, and the Notes field will provide further explanation.

This search capability is a yes/no query. Simply put, the documents have been reviewed and coded as to whether they contain a gender issue. The jurisprudence has been coded "no" where gender-related words are just reproduced without any additional discussion or information; for example, if the only mention of rape in a document appears in the statutory language citing a list of those acts comprising crimes against humanity, without any further reference to the act of rape or other sexual violence issues, it will be coded "no" for Gender Issue. In contrast, the jurisprudence has been coded "yes" where the court has not used one of the specific Gender Keywords but there is a gender issue or gender component mentioned in more depth, whether in a fact pattern, an indictment charge, a trial chamber decision discussion, etc. Therefore, the Gender Issue field will capture any document with Gender Keywords as well as any document with a discussion of gender concepts not included in the Gender Keywords—allowing one of the broadest possible searches within the jurisprudence.

Late Gender-Based Charge(s) and Dropped Gender-Based Charge(s): The Late Gender-Based Charge(s) field captures cases in which a SGBV charge is omitted from an initial indictment but then included in an amended indictment. Conversely, the Dropped Gender-Based Charge(s) field captures cases in which SGBV charges appear in the indictment or amended indictment but are later dropped in the case, whether during the pre-trial stage, as part of a plea agreement, or during trial. Again, the Notes field will provide further information about the context in which the gender-based charges were added or dropped from the case.

Final Notes

We are very excited to introduce judges, practitioners, academics, and other researchers to the GJC. It is comprehensive and contains a tremendous amount of catalogued information. Although our instructions aim to help you utilize the GJC to its greatest capacity, we realize you may have questions or comments you wish to share. In addition, the GJC is constantly undergoing development, expansion, and improvement. We welcome input from users; please do not hesitate to contact Alison Plenge at genderjurisprudence@wcl.american.edu with any questions or comments.

We look forward to enhancing this resource with Digests and Commentaries at future stages of the project.