Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Transitional Justice in Africa

This article develops strategic sexual violence as an analytical lens for understanding conflict-related sexual violence, command structures, and transitional accountability. Rather than treating sexual violence as a weapon of war: command responsibility, impunity, and transitional accountability in south sudan as a descriptive case, the manuscript argues that sexual violence in South Sudan is not adequately explained as battlefield indiscipline or opportunism alone; it is patterned by command climates, ethnic targeting, and displacement strategies that make accountability a question of organisational design as much as individual culpability. Anchored in International humanitarian law (Askin; MacKinnon); feminist legal theory; transitional justice (Hayner; Teitel); sociology of conflict-related sexual violence (Wood; Cohen). Examines sexual violence as a strategic instrument requiring command accountability rather than an inevitable byproduct of armed conflict. the paper translates the topic brief into three linked questions: What is the evidence base for concluding that sexual violence was deployed strategically as a deliberate instrument of ethnic cleansing, terror, and community destruction by parties to the South Sudan conflict? How do command structures, unit cohesion, and ethnic identity dynamics within the SSPDF, SPLA-IO, and affiliated militias shape variation in sexual violence rates across units, time periods, and geographic areas? What accountability pathways under the Rome Statute, the Hybrid Court for South Sudan, or regional human rights mechanisms are legally viable and politically realistic given the dominance of perpetrators in the current political settlement? Methodologically, it is organised around Systematic analysis of UNMISS human rights reporting