Femicide, the UN system and CEDAW

Abstract

I consider the historical development of women's rights at the United Nation level, including the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, the Beijing Platform for Action, and the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The CEDAW Committee views domestic violence, rape, and other acts of femicide through a discrimination lens. CEDAW is receptive to gender-based harm, but it tackles such harm indirectly. Accordingly, gender-based violence is directed against a woman because she is a woman, or affects women disproportionately. CEDAW therefore only indirectly considers violence as discrimination against women and girls, here exemplified with the domestic violence and rape cases relevant to femicide: Goekce v. Austria; Vertido v. The Phillippines; Angela Gonzàles Carre√±o v. Spain; O.G. v. Russia. CEDAW advances state responsibility for femicide as it recognizes non-state actor violence and that positive obligations are as essential as States' traditional negative obligations.