scholarly journals Mujeres abusadas que matan

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 671-769
Author(s):  
Melisa N. Handl

This paper analyzes the exclusion of responsibility in cases of battered women who kill their abusive partners in self-defence, emphasizing the theoretical and practical difficulties from a gender lens. I investigate self-defence simultaneously from a double perspective: the perspective of intimate partner violence, and the perspective of Canadian law. I reflect on alternative solu-tions in cases where there was a deferred self-defence, seeking a more equitative response from institutions. Self-defence protects whoever kills another person to defend herself or a third party. Even though this legal figure seems unquestionable, it is actually an ambiguous area in criminal law. Women who are abused for extended periods of time, who one day kill their abu-sers, generally do not do so during a context of physical confrontation. In this paper, instead of merely restricting my analysis to the events that occurred on the day of the abuser’s death, I will go back in time to scrutinize in detail the cycle of systematic violence and the “battered woman syndrome”, as well as the theory of “coercive control” in the Canadian context. I draw from the famous Canadian case Rust v. Lavallee (1990). I problematize some of the requirements for self-defence, emphasizing their inability to respond to the realities of battered women. This research shows a problematic disconnect between the current legal framework and the realities of violence against women.

Legal Studies ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 266-276 ◽  
Author(s):  
Celia Wells

For many women, the abuse of power in the form of physical and emotional battering by their so-called ‘partners’ is a fact of life. Individual women feel the pain, the humiliation, the fear and the anger. But the debate about how legally we should respond to a woman who finally kills her abuser is significant beyond the individual. Whatever the predicament of women such as Sara Thornton, or Kiranjit Ahluwalia, sentenced to life imprisonment and forced to scale seemingly impossible obstacles in the appeal process, the exponential rise in literature on this subject is quite disproportionate to the number and increase (if any) in such cases. The real significance of the ‘self-defence for battered women’ movement lies less in these concrete examples and more in its metaphorical role as witness to the social reality of the abuse of women.


Author(s):  
Jérémie Gilbert

This chapter focuses on the connection between the international legal framework governing the conservation of natural resources and human rights law. The objective is to examine the potential synergies between international environmental law and human rights when it comes to the protection of natural resources. To do so, it concentrates on three main areas of potential convergence. It first focuses on the pollution of natural resources and analyses how human rights law offers a potential platform to seek remedies for the victims of pollution. It next concentrates on the conservation of natural resources, particularly on the interconnection between protected areas, biodiversity, and human rights law. Finally, it examines the relationship between climate change and human rights law, focusing on the role that human rights law can play in the development of the current climate change adaptation and mitigation frameworks.


2021 ◽  
pp. 088626052110551
Author(s):  
Carmen Delgado-Alvarez ◽  
Andrés Sanchez-Prada

Recent research on the practices of justice operators with women victims of intimate partner violence has evidenced the existence of gender stereotypes and gender-blind practices in the Spanish legal system (Albertín et al., 2020; García Jiménez et al., 2019, 2020), as well as the graves consequences that such practices imply for these women. In this context, the present study explored the existence of a battered woman stereotype and its variation when the victim defends herself from the abuser. An opportunity sample of 505 undergraduates of Law, Psychology and other studies from two Spanish universities assessed some personality characteristics of a woman after watching a 1-minute-long silent video. The participants were randomly assigned to one of three observation conditions (“control”, “victim” or “self-defense victim”), which differed in the previous information given about the target woman. The Principal Components Analysis reduced the information from the questionnaire to three dimensions: “brittleness” (α = .91), “positive” (α = .786), and “hostile” (α = .809). The MANOVA confirmed the battered woman stereotype and its modification when the victim reacts against the abuser in self-defense: in this case the attribution of brittleness decreases and the attribution of hostility increases. The type of academic training showed significant effects on the stereotype, this being more negative among Law students than among Psychology ones. Law students perceive the target woman in the “victim” condition more hostile and manipulator. As for the “self-defense” condition, Law students attribute less brittleness to the victim, and perceive her more manipulator and dangerous. The effect of the observer's gender on the stereotype is consistent with the previous literature. Implications for professional training and judicial practices are discussed.


2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 664-684
Author(s):  
Christian Heinze ◽  
Cara Warmuth

Abstract In March 2018, the European Commission issued its proposal for a regulation on the law applicable to third-party effects of assignments of claims, aiming to put an end to the ongoing debate on this issue and the legal uncertainty associated with it. On the basis of the Commission’s decision in favour of the application of the law of the assignor’s habitual residence, this article discusses the consequences of the Proposal under European Union (EU) insolvency law. For that purpose, the coherence of the Proposal with the Insolvency Regulation will be examined, first in general and then in more detail. The analysis comes to the result that the Commission’s objective of aligning the Proposal with the legal framework of the Insolvency Regulation has predominantly been well achieved. The authors point out remaining minor inaccuracies that may be clarified in the further legislative process or by later case law. It is concluded that, from the perspective of international insolvency law, the proposed uniform conflict-of-laws rule at the EU level offers a good opportunity to promote legal certainty with regard to cross-border assignments of claims in the future.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Garboden

The majority of rental properties in the U.S. today is owned by small- to medium-sized investors, many of whom enter the trade with little prior experience. This paper considers the cultural factors that motivate these amateurs to purchase real estate–an investment with high risks and relatively poor returns. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 93 investors in three heterogeneous real estate markets, Baltimore, MD, Dallas, TX, and Cleveland, OH, combined with participant observation of 22 real estate investment association meetings (REIAs), this paper finds that amateurs who decide to become investors often do so during periods when their professional identities are insecure or they perceive their retirement portfolios to be insufficient. Through participation in real estate investment associations and other investor networks, they quickly internalize “investor culture,” embracing ideologies of self-sufficiency and risk. “Investor culture”—perpetuated by REIAs--motivates and legitimizes strategies of action that lead to increasingly leveraged investments. Third-party actors, including real estate gurus, paid mentors, and private “hard money” lenders exploit the intersection of insecurity and the propagation of investor culture to profit off amateurs’ investment decisions.


2020 ◽  
Vol V (IV) ◽  
pp. 17-28
Author(s):  
Mirza Shahid Rizwan Baig ◽  
Rao Qasim Idrees ◽  
Hafiz Muhammad Usman Nawaz

Housing has been given a special priority by the present Government of Pakistan due to its huge financial impact. One of the basic necessities of life includes housing. Housing has been acknowledged as directory principle under the Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan 1973. Under the scheme of the Constitution of Pakistan 1973, the provision of housing units is primarily the responsibility of the Local Governments in the provinces, but they have miserably failed to do so. This article points out some of the major reasons and obstacles due to which housing laws are unable to regulate the housing industry of Pakistan in an effective manner. At the end of this article, some suggestions and recommendations have been given, which are necessary to improve the legislative as well as the regulatory mechanism of the housing industry in Pakistan.


2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-28
Author(s):  
Renée Ridgway

‘Cybercapitalism’, commonly termed ‘digital capitalism’, refers to the Internet, or ‘cyber- space’ and seeks to engage in business models within this territory in order to make financial profit. Cybercapitalism is structured by a highly intricate series of communication networks, which connect us through our participation on social platforms, but outside of these platforms how do we navigate and explore this information superhighway? We do so predominantly through search requests. Algorithms ostensibly know what we want before we even type them, as with Google’s ‘autocomplete’. Thus search is not merely an abstract logic but a lived practice that helps manage and sort the nature of information we seek as well as the direction of our queries. Nowadays it has become clear that users pay for such services with their data, which is increasingly the means to finance various corporations’ growth as they sell this data to third party advertisers. It is a transaction and in the exchange we get relevance. But is this really true? 


2021 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather Douglas ◽  
Stella Tarrant ◽  
Julia Tolmie

This article considers what evidence juries need to help them apply the defence of self-defence where a woman claims she has killed an abusive partner to save her own life. Drawing on recent research and cases we argue that expert evidence admitted in these types of cases generally fails to provide evidence about the nature of abuse, the limitations in the systemic safety responses and the structural inequality that abused women routinely face. Evidence of the reality of the woman’s safety options, including access to, and the realistic support offered by, services such as police, housing, childcare, safety planning and financial support should be presented. In essence, juries need evidence about what has been called social entrapment so they can understand how women’s safety options are deeply intertwined with their degree of danger and therefore with the question of whether their response (of killing their abuser) was necessary based on reasonable grounds. We consider the types of evidence that may be important in helping juries understand the concept and particular circumstances of social entrapment, including the role of experts in this context.


BJPsych Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (S1) ◽  
pp. S266-S266
Author(s):  
Sharmilaa Lagunathan

AimsThe aim of the study was to identify any symptoms or features of Battered Woman Syndrome (BWS) or Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that may be associated with, or explain, abused women killing their abuser; and the extent to which such identified symptoms or features have been deemed, or are potentially relevant, to past and now reformed partial defences to murder in English law. Hence two sub-studies were completed.MethodThe first sub-study identified mental symptoms of BWS or PTSD apparent in battered women who kill their abuser; achieved by identifying relevant research papers, through applying a ‘rapid review’ approach to three databases: PubMed, PsychInfo and PsychArticles. The second sub-study identified by legal research reported Court of Appeal (CA) judgments on women appealing their conviction of the murder of their abusive partner. It then analysed the legal approach taken towards evidence of the effects of abuse upon these women before and after relevant statutory law reform (although no CA cases were identified post-reform).ResultThe first sub-study identified and reviewed six symptoms or features, within three quantitative and three qualitative studies, that appeared to be associated with, or described by, abused women killing their abuser. These included helplessness, symptoms associated with PTSD, plus fear, isolation, experience of escalation of violence and cycle of violence. From the CA cases the perpetrators of killings that occurred prior to 04.10.2010 (the date of law reform) were usually successful in having their conviction overturned based upon diminished responsibility; but not provocation, because of the requirement of ‘sudden loss of self control’. ‘Loss of control’, which replaced provocation, appears highly likely to be capable of reducing murder to manslaughter based upon symptoms of BWS, or PTSD. However, the amended defence of diminished responsibility is likely to exclude evidence of BWS, but allow evidence of PTSD, because of its requirement of the defendant suffering from ‘a recognised medical condition’.ConclusionThis study demonstrated particular symptoms or features of BWS or PTSD associated with abused women killing their abusers plus their very different relevance to two partial defences to murder, pre and post law reform.


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