On June 26, 2024, the Trial Chamber X of the International Criminal Court (ICC), in Prosecutor v Al Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz Ag Mahomed Ag Mahmoud, the first case on gender based persecution under the Rome Statute, failed to convict Al Hassan of any gender based crimes and acquitted him of the rape as a crime against humanity and war crime, sexual slavery as a crime against humanity and war crime, forced marriage as an inhumane act, and gender persecution as a crime against humanity gender crimes. On the other hand, the Trial Chamber, by a majority, convicted Al Hassan, a Malian, of many of the other charges brought against him of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed between April 2, 2012, and January 29, 2013, in Timbuktu, northern Mali, controlled at that time by the armed groups Ansar Dine. Of the thirteen charges against humanity and war crimes under the Rome Statute of the ICC, six were sexual or gender-based offences. Although the Trial Chamber recognized the existence of these gender crimes, it found that there was insufficient evidence linking the crimes to the accused. The ICC Trial Chamber seems to have missed a long-awaited opportunity to recognize gender-based persecution as a crime against humanity.

Impunity for gender crimes denies survivors human rights and accountability. It also dilutes the gravity of gender persecution as a crime against humanity rendering gender persecution a lesser crime than other war crimes and crimes against humanity. Despite good faith efforts on the part of the ICC Prosecutor’s Office to launch groundbreaking initiatives to advance accountability for the crime of persecution on the grounds of gender, including the Policy on the Crime of Gender Persecution of 2022, the ten Women Peace and Security Council Resolutions (WPS) that constitute the corpus of the WPS Agenda is not fully mined in advancing full accountability for gender crimes in international and domestic tribunals. At the cusp of the 25th anniversary of the WPS Agenda, this article critically examines how the WPS Agenda can meet its full promise in combating impunity for conflict related sexual violence and other emerging forms of gender violence. At the same time, it is time for the WPS Agenda to meet a new global moment. New and resurging conflicts in different parts of the world have incited an institutionalized denial of girls’ and women’s education and conflict- related food insecurity which should be the subject of new WPS Resolutions.