South African Constitutional Court Affirms Doctrine of Common Purpose in Rape Cases
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...
Gender
Eswatini Court Upholds a Widow’s Rights to Customary Land Use – A Beacon of Hope?
On October 9th, Ethel Dlamini (nee Gule), an elderly Swazi woman and a widow, approached the Courts to seek an interim interdict against Prince Chief Gasawa Ngwane (of Lavumisa), that...
CEDAW: The Every Woman Treaty that Already Exists
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...
Equal Pay for Equal Work? Flaws in the Indian Law
The Equal Remuneration Act 1976 (‘ERA’), a legislation in India dealing with equal pay for equal work for men and women, was repealed in August 2019, and replaced by the...
Accountability for Sexual Harassment at the International Criminal Court – The Case of Defence Support Staff
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...
Intersectional Barriers Hindering the Effectiveness of the UK’s Draft Domestic Abuse Bill, 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...
A Global Mandate to End Violence and Harassment in the World of Work: ILO Convention No. 190
“For me, as for most women workers I know, this Convention and this Recommendation are personal… This Convention, and its recognition of violence and harassment as a range of behaviours...
Domestic Workers in South Africa Lead the Way in Advancing Social Protection for Precarious Workers
In a recent South African High Court judgement, the court held the failure to cover domestic workers under Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act (COIDA) to be unconstitutional. This...
Brazilian Superior Court of Justice Decides that Victims of Domestic Violence are Entitled to Paid Work Leave – While New Legislation Could Hinder Their Right to an Adequate Standard of Living
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...
NDAs in Discrimination Cases: UK Women and Equalities Select Committee Report & Collective/Individual Justice Dilemmas
In June 2019 the UK Parliament’s Women and Equalities Select Committee (‘WESC’) published a report on the use of non-disclosure agreements (‘NDAs’) in discrimination cases, focussing on settlement. This built...
Transgender Laws in Transition: European Courts on Non-Binary Gender Recognition
A decision of the Belgian Constitutional Court is the latest in a series of judgments in Europe deciding essentially the same question: should non-binary gender identities be recognized by (non-binary)...
The ILO adopts Convention concerning violence and harassment at work
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...
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