Women’s war and Women’s justice : A legal feminist analysis of the Colombian Special Jurisdiction for Peace

Sammanfattning: In 2016, the Colombian government and the FARC-EP guerilla signed a historic peace agreement. After decades of internal armed struggle, the two parties have settled on terms that, hopefully, will allow Colombia to transit from wartime to peacetime. A substantial part of the peace agreement centers on how to adjudicate previous wrong-doings and bring perpetrators of conflict-related crimes to justice. For this purpose, the parties have created a temporary court system called the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz (JEP)). There are several remarkable aspects of the JEP and its legal mandate. However, this thesis focuses on the court’s explicit gender-based approach (enfoque de género). Through applying an international legal feminist method, the thesis establishes how the JEP functions, and how it takes account of gendered aspects. As a second step, the JEP is evaluated in light of international standards. The author concludes that the gender-based approach is in line with international norms on gender and transitional justice. As to equal participation, the JEP has a gender-balanced bench of magistrates, and it has launched a victims’ protection program that expressly focuses on gender-based violence. Furthermore, the JEP has incorporated procedural guarantees to prevent the re- traumatization of victims and witnesses. Additionally, the amnesty provisions of the JEP avoid impunity for gender-based crimes. Nevertheless, there are aspects of the JEP that limit the reach of the gender- based approach. Firstly, the JEP will focus on conflict-related public violence, and it lacks jurisdiction over intra-family private violence. Secondly, the court tends to center its attention on sexual violence and does not grant other forms of gender- based violence the same attention. However, these limitations are not unique for the JEP, and similar issues are found in international standards.