Human Rights Responses to Violence Against Women

Abstract

The last 25 years has seen the establishment of new global women’s human rights norms, especially in relation to combating all forms of gender-based violence. The international human rights system has facilitated bringing individual cases of violence against women to the CEDAW Committee through the Optional Protocol (UNGA 1999). A commitment to mainstreaming gender in all treaty bodies’ norm interpretation and to all UN agencies has included a broader understanding of gender-based violence. Some of the most important developments have occurred at the regional level with groundbreaking decisions at the Inter-American Commission and Court of Human Rights and new treaties: the Inter-American Convention of Belém do Pará on Violence against Women, adoption of the Protocol to the African (Banjul) Charter on Human and Peoples’Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol), and the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention).