RESDAL examines the limits of Military Justice in Addressing Sexual Harassment and Abuse

With the support of Global Affairs Canada through the Elsie Initiative, RESDAL held the international webinar “Military Justice: Emerging Institutional Challenges. Military and civilian jurisdiction | Peace operations | Sexual harassment and abuse” on August 27, the fifth edition of its dialogue series “Interregional Dialogues from the Global South.” 

Moderated by specialist Cecilia Mazzotta, the session examined a persistent gap between institutional policy and everyday practice in the armed forces: even as military justice systems have progressively adopted gender-responsive policies and specific protocols for harassment and abuse, commanders continue to rely primarily on disciplinary channels to respond to these cases, within the limits set by national legislation and the operational need to preserve unit cohesion and the chain of command. 

Where military jurisdiction ends 

Drawing on the recently published RESDAL book on military justice, which he co-authored with Nathalie Pabón Ayala, Mejía Azuero traced the doctrinal foundations of military criminal justice across the Americas, noting that the international framework developed since the 1945 San Francisco Charter — from the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights — has progressively narrowed its scope. 

“Under no circumstances can military criminal justice be used to conceal grave human rights violations or breaches of international humanitarian law,” he said, adding that for military jurisdiction to remain viable in the twenty-first century, it must remain anchored to the principles of the rule of law. 

Brazil’s experience: from disciplinary codes to judicial accountability 

Dr. Mariana Queiroz Aquino presented findings from her own 2020 research on nearly 2,000 servicewomen across Brazil’s armed forces, military police, and fire departments, in which 74 percent reported having experienced some form of sexual harassment during their careers. She distinguished between harassment “by exchange” — the offer of career advantages in return for sexual favors — and harassment “by intimidation,” which creates a hostile environment through unwanted conduct, illustrating both with cases drawn from her research and from her work as Brazil’s first Ombudswoman for Military Justice. 

Queiroz Aquino pointed to a significant gap in Brazil’s legal framework: its Military Criminal Code, dating to 1969 and only partially updated in 2023, still contains no specific offense of sexual harassment, unlike the ordinary criminal code. 

“Hierarchy cannot be used as a shield for criminal conduct,” she said, “and a servicewoman who is the victim of a military crime is doubly affected — as a woman and as a member of the armed forces.” 

She pointed to prevention training embedded in military education, an anti-harassment guide produced with Brazil’s Superior Military Tribunal — now in its third edition and translated into English for personnel deployed on UN peacekeeping missions — and dedicated ombudswoman’s offices as practices that have helped open institutional dialogue on the issue. 

Accountability under UN command 

Lieutenant Colonel Nilufar Sultana examined how accountability functions once a national contingent deploys under UN command, where peacekeepers remain subject to their own national military justice while simultaneously operating under UN standards and mission procedures. Because the United Nations itself has no jurisdiction to try peacekeepers, she explained, responsibility for prosecution rests with troop- and police-contributing countries — a gap that becomes especially serious when an alleged offender is repatriated before the facts are established. 

She stressed that command authority cannot substitute for a proper criminal investigation, and that protecting a contingent’s reputation can never justify suppressing a serious allegation: commanders must act formally, protect complainants, and avoid informally settling cases involving sexual exploitation and abuse. Drawing on Bangladesh’s experience as a leading troop-contributing country — including the deployment of a National Investigation Officer with every contingent — she closed with three principles for effective accountability: clarity, so that every deployed member knows where to report and who investigates; coordination between the mission, the contingent, and national authorities; and credibility, built through fair and timely process. 

“A strong peacekeeping [operation] is not one that never faces allegations,” she said. “It is the one that can receive an allegation, protect the people involved, establish the facts fairly, act within the law, and learn from the experience.” 

Questions from the floor 

In the Q&A that followed, Hala Salem asked Dr. Queiroz Aquino how effective Brazil’s current tools and mechanisms have been in practice. She pointed to growing openness within the armed forces to request training directly, and to the importance of reaching service members of all ranks — men and women alike — during initial and advanced military education, before outdated disciplinary regulations fall further behind legislative advances on women’s and human rights. 

Lieutenant Colonel Carlos Sosa, an officer of the Uruguayan Army with three peacekeeping deployments, asked how to strengthen prevention and response mechanisms for military personnel deployed abroad, particularly in cases involving minors. Sultana pointed again to clarity within the memorandum of understanding between the UN and each troop-contributing country, and to national investigation officers as a practice that has allowed Bangladesh to follow through on allegations rather than lose track of them after repatriation. 

A truly interregional dialogue 

By the close of registration, 383 people had signed up for the session, of whom 174 joined live — a 45 percent attendance rate over the webinar’s 115-minute run, during which the audience submitted ten questions in real time. As of the last full geographic count, taken two days before the event, registrants spanned 55 countries across every region. 

From Latin America and the Caribbean, participants registered from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Africa was represented by Botswana, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Morocco, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Western Sahara, and Zambia. From Asia, registrants joined from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Japan, Nepal, Pakistan, and the Philippines. The Middle East was represented by Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, and Yemen, while Europe and North America were represented by Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Moldova, Romania, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States — alongside Fiji, the session’s only registrant from Oceania. 

The fifth edition of “Interregional Dialogues from the Global South” brought together perspectives and experiences from Colombia, Brazil, and Bangladesh to examine current challenges in military justice, harassment, and accountability. The discussion highlighted the importance of clear legal frameworks, effective reporting and investigation mechanisms, victim protection, and coordination among military institutions, national justice systems, and international standards.