Case selection and complementarity at the International Criminal Court : exposing the vulnerability of sexual and gender-based violence crimes in the admissibility test

The Second Edition was published on 1 June 2018.Although extensive literature exists on the principle of complementarity, on the one hand, and on the Rome Statute's groundbreaking gender justice provisions, on the other, only few scholars have linked these two important aspects that underpin the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC). This chapter aims to fill the gap by analysing the ICC's interpretation of what is known as 'legal' complementarity: the admissibility test. This analysis exposes a number of gender biases that may adversely affect the recognition and prosecution of sexual and gender-based violence crimes. This chapter thus argues that the way in which the admissibility test has been interpreted by the Court to date risks leaving significant impunity gaps for sexual and gender-based violence.The book chapter is part of the author's EUI PhD thesis, 2017 (as chapter 3