Blog
Promoting dialogue between human rights researchers, practitioners and policy-makers from around the world.
Original contributions on recent human rights law developments across the globe, including case law, current litigation, legislation, policy-making and activism are welcome.
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Lucy Geddes 25th January 2019
Between the years of 1960 and 1974, Spanish lawyer and feminist activist Lidia Falcón O’Neill was detained seven times by security police on behalf of the Franco government, because of her protests against the regime. On five of these occasions, she alleges that she was brutally tortured, including being hung from a hook in the […]
Kali Srikari Kancherla and Shreyasi Tripathi 25th October 2018
In the landmark decision in Joseph Shine v Union of India on 27 September 2018, the Indian Supreme Court unanimously struck down a 150-year old penal provision criminalising adultery as unconstitutional. Section 497 of Indian Penal Code 1860 criminalises a man having consensual sexual intercourse with a married woman without the consent of her husband. The Court […]
Karan Tripathi 23rd May 2018
Despite India’s liberal and secular commitments, honour killing has remained a social reality. A report by the National Crime Records Bureau records at least 288 cases of such violence in the period 2014-2016. Against this background, the Supreme Court of India, on 28th March 2018, passed a landmark judgment in Shakti Vahini v. Union of […]
23rd April 2018
In a recent case before the Indian Supreme Court, Ms X v Mahmood Farooqi, the court refused to overturn a Delhi High Court decision which set a dangerous precedent that a ‘feeble no’ did not signify a lack of consent in rape cases. In the present case, Ms X accused Mahmood Farooqi of committing rape […]
Madhulika T 6th April 2018
Following Puttaswamy v Union of India – in which the judges unanimously and unequivocally ruled that a right to privacy exists – the marital rape exception found in the Indian Penal Code which states that non-consensual sex between a man and his wife is not rape, is of questionable legal standing. In India “a right to privacy” […]