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Gender Apartheid and Cultural Absolution: Saudi Arabia and The International Criminal Court
Introduction
On 17 July 1998, when the Rome Statue of the International Criminal Court 1 (the Rome Statute and ICC, respectively) was adopted, significant and inclusive consideration of gender as a relational concept was embodied, for the first time, within international human rights law. The following article argues that once the Rome Statue comes into effect 2 one of the first cases on the ICC docket should be an investigation of Saudi Arabian crimes against humanity -- as outlined in article 7 and defined in article 7(1), "as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population" -- committed by the Saudi government against the female population, citizens and foreign-guest workers alike.
Gender Apartheid and Cultural Absolution
Although serious human rights abuses are committed in Saudi against foreign laborers, largely from South East Asia, it is women, both citizens and foreigners, which suffer from state-established denial of the most basic of human rights. The breadth of the Saudi state's gender apartheid is severe and extensive and, thus, constitutes a crime against humanity perpetrated by the Saudi regime against its female population. Women, for instance, are prohibited, inter alia freedom of movement, association, speech and expression; the right to be free from violence; and the right to a fair trial and legal system. The list of human rights refused to women because they are women is too lengthy to enumerate in this article; however, both Amnesty International (AI) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) have completed various reports detailing the nature and extent of violations committed by the Saudi government. 3
Because the systematic human rights abuses ongoing in Saudi Arabia fall, predominately, along gender divisions they have been underreported and generally ignored by the global community. The United Nations Commission on Human Rights, the US and other United Nations' member-states have failed to publicly address the violations in Saudi Arabia. Although similar types of human rights defilement invoke public, international offense when occurring in a racial dominant context (e.g., South Africa), when committed in gender advantageous circumstances, most often men over women, it remains virtually unnoticed. Hiding behind a fortification of so-called cultural and religious norms, the Saudi government has...