Confronting 'War's Oldest and Least Condemned Crime': An Examination of the International Norm against Conflict-Related Sexual Violence

My research examines the emergence, institutionalisation, and evolution of the international norm against conflict-related sexual violence. Drawing on the norms literature and constructivist theory, this qualitative, thesis examines why states and international organisations were receptive to civil society agitation around the issue in the 1990s, and how the institutionalisation of the prohibition first as an international crime and later as an international norm under UN auspices has influenced the norm's trajectory.