\n The German government on Wednesday approved a draft law allowing sexual violence in conflict zones to be prosecuted as a war crime and a crime against humanity.\n<\/p>\n
\n The centre-left-led coalition passed a justice ministry measure allowing a change to Germany's criminal code. It would permit Germany to probe such crimes committed abroad under the principle of \"universal jurisdiction\".\n<\/p>\n
\n The change would mean that the existing war crimes definition would be expanded to encompass sexual assault, sexual enslavement and forced pregnancy termination.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Sexual violence, primarily against women, has long been used in conflict worldwide by terrorists, systematically in armed conflicts and as a tactical weapon,\" German family and women's affairs minister Lisa Paus told AFP.\n<\/p>\n
\n Berlin was seeking to bolster \"the rights of the victims of this horrible crime by giving them the opportunity to take an active part in the criminal trial\" as co-plaintiffs, Paus said.\n<\/p>\n
\n The impetus behind the new legislation, which still requires parliamentary approval, was widespread accounts of sexual assault since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, she said.\n<\/p>\n
\n Paus of the Green party also pointed to reports of the rape of Israelis by Hamas fighters in the October 7 attacks.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"International criminal law has become dramatically relevant since the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine,\" Justice Minister Marco Buschmann of the liberal Free Democrats said in a statement.\n<\/p>\n
\n The third party in the ruling coalition, the Social Democrats, noted the importance of the legal reform in explicitly protecting LGBTQ people in war zones, calling it \"historic\".\n<\/p>\n
\n \"War crimes\" and \"crimes against humanity\" were both defined in the 1998 Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court (ICC).\n<\/p>\n
\n A war crime covers more than 50 scenarios, including killing, torture, rape and hostage taking.\n<\/p>\n
\n Germany has in the past repeatedly prosecuted atrocities committed abroad, including in the war in Syria.\n<\/p>\n
\n It does so using universal jurisdiction which allows countries to try people for crimes of exceptional gravity, including war crimes and genocide, even if they were committed in a different country.\n<\/p>\n
\n UN investigators probing violations in Ukraine since Russia's invasion reported in March that Moscow was behind a vast array of war crimes, including widespread attacks on civilians and infrastructure, killings, torture, rape and other sexual violence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The German government on Wednesday approved a draft law allowing sexual violence in conflict zones to be prosecuted as a war crime and a crime against humanity. The centre-left-led coalition passed a justice ministry measure allowing a change to Germany's criminal code. It would permit Germany to probe such crimes committed abroad under the principle […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-124157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n