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Research Profile

The RTG explores the complex interrelationships between conceptions of gender and international criminal law from an interdisciplinary perspective. Rather than treating international criminal law as a purely abstract set of norms for prosecuting (state-driven) macro-criminality, the RTG also examines it within its institutional, societal, and practical contexts. Adopting a Life and Law approach, the research focuses on the 'social life of law': How norms of international criminal law are actually interpreted, applied, perceived, and experienced across diverse international and domestic settings.

We understand gender as a constructed, multidimensional and relational category of differentiation through which individuals are categorised and assigned gender-related expectations. Drawing on a ‘doing gender’ approach, we examine how conceptions of gender are produced and rendered relevant through interactions, institutions, discourses and narratives. The aim is to show whether and how ideas about gender shape access to power, social participation, and legal recognition; how they create and simultaneously legitimise possibilities and constraints; and under what conditions they contribute to the emergence or reproduction of social inequalities while reinforcing overarching gender orders.

From this perspective, law itself is also a gendered construction. It reflects social realities and is therefore almost inevitably shaped by prevailing conceptions of gender. At the same time, it provides a forum in which gender is produced, negotiated and given social effect. Law can thus function both as an instrument of domination — one that secures existing power relations and entrenches gender-based inequalities — and as a tool of emancipation that strengthens marginalized groups and promotes gender rights. Building on this gender-sensitive perspective on law, the RTG develops a comprehensive interdisciplinary framework tailored specifically to international criminal law, which allows for examining the emergence, effects, legal treatment, and processing of core international crimes.

The overarching guiding question of the RTG is: