Human Rights of Women: National and International Perspectives

13. Domestic Violence as an International Human Rights Issue

Chapter 13 Domestic Violence asan International Human Rights Issue Kenneth Roth Introduction In this chapter I will discuss some of the methodological problems that the Human Rights Watch Women's Rights Project has encountered in addressing domestic violence against women. I have chosen to focus on domestic violence both because of the severity of the problem and because of the complexities of the legal and conceptual issues that arise in treating it as a human rights violation. By highlighting these complexities , I hope to illustrate how international human rights law can most effectively be used to combat domestic violence. The discussion will also have obvious relevance to other efforts to address de facto discrimination in the application of facially neutral criminal laws to private actors. I will begin by tracing the evolution of the traditional human rights movement for the purpose of showing both why that movement has neglected the problem of domestic violence and why such neglect can no longer bejustified in light of comparable issues that the movement now addresses. I will then outline the type of evidence that in my view is needed to treat the problem of domestic violence as a human rights issue, while noting the ways in which this proof often differs significantly from the evidence required for more traditional human rights inquiries. Finally, I will discuss the experience of the Human Rights Watch Women's Rights Project in collecting this evidence. In doing so, I will note a troubling void that we have observed in the work of local human rights and women's rights organizations. By highlighting this void, I hope to help spawn the factual research needed to address the problem of domestic violence more effectively as a human rights issue. Domestic Violence asan International Human Rights Issue 327 A Narrow Reading of International Human Rights Law Until very recently, international human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, have neglected the problem of domestic violence against women. In discussing international human rights organizations I will limit myself to two: Human Rights Watch,because it is the organization with which I am most familiar, and Amnesty International , because of its defining role in the field. One cause of this neglect wastheir narrow reading of the broad language of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights(the Covenant). I willlimit my legal discussion to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, because this treaty is the most influential within the traditional human rights movement, and because it addresses problems of violence more directly than the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of DiscriminationAgainstWomen.The Covenant containspowerful , expansive phrases, with obvious potential relevance to the fight against domestic violence—particularly violence that amounts to murder , and arguably also lesser assaults. For example, Article 6(1)provides : "Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life." Article 7 provides that "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment." Article 9(1) provides that "Everyone has the right to ... security of person." Allthese guarantees are arguably implicated by domestic violence. Political Motivation Despite the broad potential reach of the Covenant's guarantees, international human rights organizations, particularly in their early days, treated these provisions as if they applied only to the victimsof politically motivated abuse (and even then only if the abuse wasat the hands of a government agent). It was as if the sweeping language of these provisions—"Every human being," "Everyone"—were replaced by the far narrower phrase, "every dissident." Part of the reason for this narrow reading of the Covenant is historical accident: the large human rights organizations were born out of a concern with politically motivated abuse. Amnesty International was founded to protect people who had been imprisoned for their peaceful political beliefs. The classic prisoner of conscience was a man or woman who had been detained because of his or her nonviolent political opposition to a government. Human Rights Watch, in the form of HelsinkLWatch, originated in an effort to protect human rights monitors who had begun to emerge in the former Soviet Union and 328 Kenneth Roth Eastern Europe followingthe signing of the HelsinkiAccords in 1975. These "Helsinki monitors" arose in response to Principle VII of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, which proclaimed "the right of...