scholarly journals Considering the Role of the State: Comment on “Criminalizing Sexual Violence Against Women in Intimate Relationships”

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 109 ◽  
pp. 202-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Goldscheid
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Violence Against Women ◽  
Intimate Relationships ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Marital Rape ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
International Human

International human rights frameworks offer powerful support for a range of reforms to address marital rape. Melanie Randall and Vasanthi Venkatesh’s valuable commentary, Criminalizing Sexual Violence against Women in Intimate Relationships, correctly shines a spotlight on the extent to which marital rape is still accepted in too many countries around the world, and calls for its explicit criminalization under international human rights laws. The commentary serves as an important reminder of the challenges and enduring stereotypes that prevent marital rape from being recognized globally as a human rights violation. But the commentary’s focus on criminalization as the fundamental response is unduly limited. While criminalization, whether explicit or implicit, is a core part of states’ obligations under international human rights law, centering criminal justice risks both shortchanging other approaches and obscuring the problems with criminal justice interventions. Although Randall and Venkatesh acknowledge that criminalization is but one element of a broader strategy, this essay urges a broader view. International human rights laws’ due diligence framework requires a range of responses that include the obligation to prevent, protect, and provide redress, along with the obligation to prosecute and punish. Explicitly framing states’ obligations in terms of that more comprehensive approach would reach broadly to address the cultural and social barriers that allow marital rape to continue without sanction.

Marriage: A Get Out of Jail Free Card?

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 168-190
Author(s):  
Siane Richardson
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Sexual Offenders ◽  
Intimate Relationships ◽  
Sexual Offending ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Sexual Offences ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
International Human

Abstract Marital rape is a particularly heinous form of sexual violence that occurs within intimate relationships. However, throughout much of the world, the marriage contract affords legal immunity to marital partners who would otherwise be convicted as sexual offenders. By reviewing the laws of the Commonwealth jurisdictions, this research highlights the necessity for reform in many jurisdictions that continue to allow for marital exemptions to sexual offending. This review identified three main forms of marital exemption, that is the general marital exemption to the primary sexual offence, the creation of spousal-specific sexual offences, and the use of marital exemptions to remove or reduce liability for sexual offences involving minors. The operation of these marital exemptions is then considered in the context of international human rights law and its prohibition on sexual violence within intimate relationships. An analysis of the jurisprudence surrounding Article 2 of CEDAW, Article 19 of the CRC and the prohibition of torture informs the argument that international human rights law requires the prohibition of marital exemptions to sexual offending throughout the Commonwealth nations. Marital exemptions continue to afford sexual offending with impunity across many Commonwealth jurisdictions in breach of the international human rights obligations of those nations and reform should occur in order to uphold the rights of sexual violence survivors.

scholarly journals Zero-Tolerance Comes to International Law

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 109 ◽  
pp. 337-341 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aya Gruber
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Violence Against Women ◽  
Zero Tolerance ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Marital Rape ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
International Human

It is difficult to engage from a theoretical perspective an advocacy piece that largely reads like a brief in favor of particular claim of law, namely, that a state’s failure to (vigorously) criminalize marital rape violates international human rights law. In a brief, the litigant pulls together various sources to prove the legal claim is correct. Opponents typically respond by cobbling together their own sources to undermine that claim. In their essay, Criminalizing Sexual Violence Against Women in Intimate Relationships, Randall and Venkatesh set out to prove that international human rights law, in fact, requires states to criminalize marital rape. I suspect there are international lawyers who can persuasively argue that international human rights law does not, in fact, require such criminalization.

scholarly journals Why Sexual Assault in Intimate Relationships Must be Criminalized as Required by International Human Rights Law: A Response to the Symposium Comments

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 109 ◽  
pp. 342-347
Author(s):  
Melanie Randall ◽  
Vasanthi Venkatesh
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Intimate Relationships ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Marital Rape ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
State Action ◽  
International Human ◽  
Women Rights

Ending the marital rape exemption in criminal law is a demand for legal equality and autonomy for women, rights that are enshrined in international human rights law. Drawing on international human rights law as a source of authority for challenging the marital rape exception in criminal law allows feminist and other social justice organizations, within their specific national and local contexts, to seek greater state action and accountability toward ending this form of violence against women and this violation of women’s human rights. In this reply, we challenge the arguments in the symposium that oppose or caution against criminalizing sexual violence in intimate relationships as a necessary legal strategy, and that refute our view that ending the marital rape exemption is required by international human rights law.

Defining and Delineating the Right to Reproductive Choice

1998 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-95
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Reproductive Rights ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Reproductive Choice ◽  
Equal Rights ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
International Human ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Right

AbstractWhile the notion of a prescribed set of `reproductive rights' has been advanced in various contexts, particularly in the agendas for action adopted at the United Nations conferences held in Cairo (1994) and Beijing (1995), these rights as a group remain controversial. This can be partly explained by their poor definition and often tenuous legal grounding, opening the door to easy criticism. Clarification of the essential content and scope of protection offered under existing international human rights law would be helpful. In this article, the definition of reproductive rights in the Beijing Platform for Action is critically scrutinized, leading to the conclusion that only four of the so-called `reproductive rights' are provided in existing international human rights instruments. These four may be seen as forming a bundle of inseparable rights which the author refers to as the composite right to reproductive choice. The special conflict which can arise between two members of a couple who, while bearing equal rights to reproductive choice, may hold differing views and have opposing desires regarding reproduction is also examined, specifically in relation to the role of the State in resolving the potential for the violation of one individual's right to reproductive choice by another individual.

scholarly journals Involuntary Sterilisation as a Form of Violence against Women in Africa

2017 ◽  
Vol 53 (5) ◽  
pp. 721-732 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ebenezer Durojaye
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Violence Against Women ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Emotional Trauma ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
International Human ◽  
Human Rights Violation

This article examines the meaning and nature of sterilisation. It equally discusses the historical context of involuntary sterilisation and its likely human rights implications. More importantly, it discusses the decision of the Namibian Supreme Court in Government of Namibia v LM and argues that the court fails to consider involuntary sterilisation as a form of human rights violation, particularly violence against women. The article contends that given the attendant mental, physical and emotional trauma a woman may suffer upon undergoing forced sterilisation, this would amount to an act of violence against women as recognised under international human rights law.

Sexual Violence beyond Consent and Coercion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pascha Bueno-Hansen
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Limiting Factors ◽  
Final Report ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Legal Cases ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
International Human

This chapter examines how the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (PTRC) treated the issue of sexual violence committed within the internal armed conflict, both in the preparation of an emblematic case and through its final report. Although the PTRC was not mandated to investigate sexual violence, it included the violation under the umbrella of torture and other grave violations in compliance with international human rights law. Of the forty-seven legal cases that the PTRC prepared for prosecution and passed to the state prosecutor, two cases address rape. The PTRC labeled the Manta and Vilca case as emblematic of sexual violence as it took place in the rural context by military personnel. This chapter considers the binary of consent/coercion and conceptual myopia around sexual violence as the two most significant limiting factors regarding the implementation of the international human rights regime to investigate and prosecute sexual violence.

scholarly journals Combating Transnational Organised Crime through International Human Rights Law

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-37
Author(s):  
Tom Obokata
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Organised Crime ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
International Human ◽  
Forced Labour

This article explores the key obligations imposed upon States under international human rights law to combat transnational organised crime. It begins by highlighting a number of human rights which are affected by various forms of organised crime, such as the rights to life, liberty and security, health, property, culture, as well as the prohibition on slavery/forced labour and other inhuman or degrading treatments. The article then analyses the key obligations imposed upon States under international human rights law, with particular reference to (1) investigation, prosecution and punishment, (2) protection of victims and (3) prevention. The main conclusion reached is that international human rights law is indeed useful as it encourages States to adopt a holistic approach capable of addressing the complex and multi-faceted nature of transnational organised crime beyond simple criminal justice responses.

6 Right to be Tried without Undue Delay

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clooney Amal ◽  
Webb Philippa
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Fair Trial ◽  
Time Limit ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Criminal Proceeding ◽  
International Human ◽  
The Right

This chapter examines the right to be tried without undue delay. The speed of a trial is integral to its overall fairness. The longer a trial takes, the longer that the defendant, still presumed innocent, is in legal jeopardy; the longer that they may be kept in pre-trial detention; and the greater the risk that witnesses may forget details or evidence may disappear. However, despite the importance of efficiency in criminal justice, chronic delays in trials in domestic jurisdictions have been widely reported. In fact, the right to be tried without undue delay is one of the most litigated aspects of the right to a fair trial. Unlike some violations, delayed proceedings are relatively easy to prove; the question is what constitutes a delay that is ‘undue’ under international human rights law. There is no global time limit for a criminal proceeding and each case must be assessed on its facts, taking into account its complexity; the conduct of the defendant, the prosecution, and other state authorities; and—for most international bodies—the prejudice caused to the defendant by the delay.

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