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Jade Weiner - 1st January 2020
In criminal law, the doctrine of common purpose establishes that where two or more people agree to a commit a crime, each will be responsible for the acts of the others that fall within their common purpose or design. In the landmark judgement of Tshabalala v The State; Ntuli v The State, the South African […]
Amanda Dale - 11th December 2019
There is an initiative for a new treaty focused on violence against women that calls itself the “Every Woman Treaty”. It is proposed as a stand-alone United Nations (UN) treaty focused on violence against women. The initiative originates from outside the United Nations. Its proponents have been present at various international women’s rights gatherings for […]
Stergios Aidinis and Ivo Gruev - 26th November 2019
In March 2018, amid the rise of the #MeToo hashtag on Twitter, international media brought attention to a series of uninvited advances by an experienced defence counsel at the ICC towards a younger, female case manager during a professional trip. This incident arose in relation to the so-called ‘Article 70 case’ of Mr Jean-Pierre Bemba-Gombo […]
Sumaiyah Kholwadia - 25th November 2019
The UK’s Draft Domestic Abuse Bill, 2019 has been described as a ‘landmark’ piece of legislation. This recognition is due in part to the Bill’s extension of the definition of ‘domestic abuse’ to include ‘economic abuse’. However, due to recent political events pertaining to Brexit, the Bill has been side-lined and we have now entered […]
Natalia Brigagao - 19th September 2019
The Brazilian Superior Court of Justice (STJ) established a new precedent asserting that women who suffer domestic violence are entitled to a court-determined paid work leave of six months or less. Employers must pay the first 15 days of salary, while the National Institute of Social Security (INSS) is responsible for providing for the remaining […]
Kevät Nousiainen - 22nd July 2019
Sexual harassment, an expression of violence against women (VAW), received remarkable media attention with the #MeToo Movement. It was a reminder of the law’s poor track record in curbing workplace harassment and other forms of gendered violence. In the international legal context, the ILO approach to VAW in the workplace has followed two tracks. Harassment […]
Lyndon Baines-Johnson and Mwai Daka - 22nd July 2019
In February 2019, President Bio of Sierra Leone declared a state of emergency to combat rape and sexual violence. However, if the declaration is to have full effect, ambiguities and gaps within the country’s legal framework need to be cleared up, and replaced by clear law preventing child marriage, and sexual and gender-based violence. Most […]
Anissa Daoudi - 7th July 2019
The 19th of June is celebrated as the UN International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict. In this context, Security Council Resolution 1820, in 2008, recognized sexual violence as a tactic of war and a threat to global peace and security. It recognized that rape and other forms of sexual violence can […]
Angela Hefti - 19th June 2019
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights’ (IACtHR) feminist answer to torture and sexual enslavement in its September 2018 López Soto v Venezuela judgment is unprecedented. López Soto is the first femicide case before the Court, in which the victim could testify to the circumstances of her captivity and abuse. In 2001, Linda López Soto was abducted […]
Fleur van Leeuwen - 13th May 2019
In October 2018 the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Committee (HRC) adopted general comment (GC) 36 on the right to life, replacing GC 6 and GC 14. Latter documents date back to the 1980s and attest to the androcentric nature of the international human rights system. Neither document pays attention to issues that characteristically affect the […]
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 […]