دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی زمان برای یک قرارداد سازمان ملل متحد درباره خشونت علیه زنان - تیلور و فرانسیس 2017

ABSTRACT

Violence against women is one of the most prevalent human rights abuses at the global level. However, no specific mention of this issue is made in any of the United Nations (UN) treaties. This article begins by discussing why any express reference to violence against women was excluded from the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and then proceeds to examine existing efforts at the UN level in this area. The key focus of this article however is on the new and important question of whether it is now time for a specific treaty on violence against women to be adopted at the UN level. The article analyses the arguments surrounding the adoption of a global treaty on violence against women, and aims to provide a detailed examination of this highly significant area of law, while seeking to offer original insights on this issue.

Conclusion

When CEDAW was drafted in 1979, violence against women was simply not an issue on the agenda for international human rights law. However awareness of the extent of this issue and of its complex nature has grown enormously in recent years. If an instrument focusing on the rights of women were to be adopted in the present day, it would be inconceivable for an issue such as violence against women to be omitted. Although this issue is now clearly on the agenda of UN bodies such as the CEDAW Committee, it seems unjustifiable from the perspective of principle that there are still no legally binding provisions at the global level on violence against women, and it is submitted that a treaty on violence against women would be a desirable development.

It is acknowledged that the development of such an instrument would not be an easy process. Indeed, there are many issues which would require painstaking examination. As referred to previously, all of the UN human rights treaties suffer from substantial problems as regards implementation. This raises the question therefore of how difficulties of this nature could be avoided in respect of a UN treaty on violence against women. It is almost certain that the answer is that they could not. The question which therefore would necessitate extensive consideration is how such problems could be minimised as far as possible. Other issues which would require substantial examination include how best to strike a balance between on the one hand, making state obligations under such an instrument as effective and detailed as possible, and on the other, not making such duties so onerous that states would be discouraged from ratifying the treaty. Nevertheless, although there would certainly be many difficult issues to be addressed in the process, it seems that a UN treaty on violence against women would have the potential to make a significant contribution to the movement to combat such abuse. Should a new treaty lack the requisite level of support however, it is important that existing work at the UN level on violence against women be developed and strengthened, such as by the continuation by the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women with the approach of conducting detailed investigations of the laws, policies and practices of each state as regards this crucial issue.