or cooperate with the Court may help with the Court’s decision whether to open an investigation.  Details of investigation and prosecution or lack thereof of the situation at the national level. If the person or group sending the communication is claiming the State’s inability to hold alleged perpetrators accountable, it is important to include the reasons for such State inability. Examples of how the conflict has destroyed systems and institutions rendering a State effectively unable to proceed will be important in such a case. If the claim is of unwillingness on the part of the State, then details as to how the group sending the communication has reached such a conclusion is crucial. Documentation that shows long ineffective investigations, lack of protection to victims, non-action against alleged perpetrators, public praise of alleged perpetrators or sham investigations or prosecutions may be used to establish unwillingness of the State to provide justice to victims. Biased and selective investigation into some crimes or against some perpetrators may also show lack of will to provide fair and impartial justice.  Provide dates that the alleged crimes took place after July 2002 or after the date when the concerned State ratified the ICC treaty. If the situation sought to be investigated is prior to the date the State became party to the treaty, an explanation as to the possibility of the State accepting the jurisdiction of the Court will be helpful. If a UN Security Council referral is sought, the advocacy and communication will have to be directed to the UN Security Council in addition to the communication sent to the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP). 6.4.3 Prosecution of Sexual Violence at the ICC From the establishment of the Court until May 2012 seven situations had been under investigation. In the fifteen cases already instituted at the ICC, there are twenty-one counts of sexual violence as war crimes and crimes against humanity. Attached to this section as annexure 6B are the details of the counts of sexual violence in the different cases at the ICC. The ICC has to date issued only one judgment: the Lubanga judgment on a case from the DRC. A case based mainly on evidence of sexual violence is also pending against Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo for crimes of rape and sexual slavery in the Central African Republic. The judgment and the decisions issued thus far in both these cases have, as discussed below, serious implications on gender justice. The issues raised are indicative of the kind of education and advocacy efforts that are required both at the national and international level on investigation and prosecution of sexual violence. i) Evidence of sexual violence but no accountability for it The ICC’s judgment finding Thomas Lubanga Dyilo guilty of enlisting and conscripting children under the age of fifteen years into the Force Patriotique pour la Liberation du Congo (FPLC) 233 is significant in many ways. It is the first ever verdict issued by the permanent criminal court, it sent a strong message that conscription of children and using them in hostilities is among the most serious of crimes and more importantly it brought to account some of the horrific crimes that mark the conflict that continues in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. From a gender justice perspective however, the trial process of the case is blemished with refusal on the part of the Prosecutor to add sexual violence charges in the indictment and on the part of the Judges of the Trial Chambers for failing to direct the OTP to do so. Prosecutors of the international criminal tribunals have approached their cases so as to conduct limited investigations resulting in limited charging. The consequence of limiting charges has been that crimes of sexual violence have often been left out of the indictments. 234 While lack of 233 ICC Trial Chamber I, Situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, The Prosecutor v. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, Judgment Pursuant to Article 74 of the Statute, ICC-01/04-01/06,14 March 2012 [hereinafter, Lubanga Judgment]. 234 See, e.g., Nowrojee, ‘Your Justice is Too Slow’ Will the ICTR Fail Rwanda’s Rape Victims?, United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) Occasional Paper Ten, November, 2005 (an earlier version available at http://genderandsecurity.umb.edu/Nowrojee.pdf); Staggs and Stepakoff, ‘When We Wanted to Talk About Rape’: Silencing 64 6. INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN AND CRIMINAL LAW | REDRESS