Although the phrase "systematic rape" was widely and correctly used to describe certain forms of the sexual crimes committed against women during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, there is no specific crime of “systematic rape” under international law.

But proving that rape is widespread or systematic is important for establishing a crime against humanity. To be convicted of rape as a crime against humanity, it is not necessary to prove that rape itself was widespread or systematic, but instead that the attack was widespread or systematic, and rape was one of the acts that formed part of the attack, The systematic character of certain rapes may also help establish the stringent intent requirement for the charge of genocide.

The systematic pattern of rapes in conflicts around the world might also be relevant in establishing the criminal responsibility of superior officers for sexual assaults committed by subordinates. For example, under the statute of the Yugoslavia Tribunal, a commander can be prosecuted for rapes committed by his subordinates if he “knew or had reason to know that the subordinate was about to commit such acts or had done so and the superior failed to take the necessary and reasonable measures to prevent such acts or to punish the perpetrators thereof.” High-level military or civilian leaders can be held individually responsible for rape crimes committed by others if they ordered, encouraged, aided and abetted, or otherwise facilitated the crimes. When rape is systematic or widespread, especially when notorious or committed over a period of weeks or months, silence of leaders can be regarded as approving of or acquiescing in the rape crimes.

Women in conflict zones are frequently raped to humiliate and degrade, as part of a program to terrorize, to drive away the unwanted ethnic "other," to boost the military’s morale, to demoralize the males associated with the raped women. Rape is regularly committed as part of a broad, systematic—even strategic—campaign to destroy a targeted group, and this destruction is explicitly or implicitly encouraged by authorities, sometimes even ordered.

High-, mid- and lower-level actors in future wars will have to take note of some of the historic judgments rendered by the Yugoslav and Rwanda tribunals. In Arusha, for example, Jean-Paul Akayesu, mayor of Taba commune, was found to have encouraged and even ordered Hutu militia and even civilians to commit rape and other acts of sexual violence against Tutsi women, as well as to kill Tutsis outright. The Rwanda Tribunal held that the rape of Tutsi women “was systematic and was perpetrated against all Tutsi women and solely against them.” The trial chamber concluded that if done with intent to destroy a protected group in whole or in part, “rape and sexual
violence constitute genocide in the same way as any other act,” and that Akayesu had systematically targeted Tutsi women to contribute to the destruction of the Tutsi group as a whole. It explained that sexual violence “was a step in the process of destruction of the Tutsi group—destruction of the spirit, of the will to live, and of life itself.” On September 2, 1998, Akayesu was convicted of rape as a crime against humanity and as part of the genocide.