Does International Humanitarian Law Adequately Address Gender Issues?

Abstract

With the increasing complexity of armed conflict situations around the world, how to solve the gender issue in conflict situations has gradually become a topic of concern for the international community. International humanitarian law (IHL), as a legal framework designed to provide humanitarian protection for people in armed conflict, is of great significance in regulating wrongful acts in armed conflict and reducing the adverse effects caused by armed conflict, which of course also includes dealing with gender issues that commonly occur in conflict situations. This essay aims to study the significance and problems of gender provisions in IHL, and how different cultural, legal and political factors affect the implementation of gender provisions in IHL, especially the difficulties in the accountability and punishment of sexual violence, from the perspective of the development of gender regulations under the framework of IHL. This paper mainly adopts a qualitative analysis method and supplemented with appropriate quantitative data. Through case studies of specific conflict countries, comparative analysis and analysis of key legal texts under the framework of IHL, this essay expounds the current achievements and shortcomings of IHL in addressing gender issues in armed conflict. The significance of this study is that it hopes to further understand the IHL framework from a gender perspective and put forward relevant suggestions to promote the appropriateness and effectiveness of IHL as an important humanitarian gender protection legal system.