Law Commons^™

Ting Ting Cheng Appointed As Director Of Columbia Law School’S Era Project, Center For Gender And Sexuality Law

Center for Gender & Sexuality Law

New York, New York — Today, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) Project at Columbia Law School announced that Ting Ting Cheng has been appointed as the Project’s first Director. Ms. Cheng has wide-ranging experience as an advocate for gender justice and brings an ambitious strategic vision to the ERA Project’s work.

Do Gun Policies Really Protect Women? A Cross-National Test Of The Relationship Between Gun Regulations And Female Homicide Victimization, Janet Stamatel, Kathleen Ratajczak, Robert Hoekstra

Sociology Faculty Publications

Globally, firearms are the most frequent means of committing homicide with young males most likely to be victimized with guns. However, within the context of intimate partner violence and family violence, females’ risk of lethal gun violence rises significantly, supporting the need to pay more attention to firearms to reduce lethal VAW. One way to protect women from firearm violence within the private sphere is to regulate access to guns based on the risk of family violence. This study examines the extent to which gun availability and gun regulations affect lethal violence against women in a relatively large sample of …

#Metoo And The Pursuit Of Women's International Human Rights, Benedetta Faedi Duramy

Publications

IN THE PAST YEAR, high profile cases and the ensuing #MeToo movement have raised much attention on issues surrounding gender discrimination, violence against women, and sexual harassment in the workplace. In the United States, allegations of sexual assault and harassment spawned the deposition or resignation of prominent figures in the entertainment, media, dining, and business industries following the onset of the #MeToo social media movement.' In the rest of the world, many people also embraced the online crusade by sharing the hashtag millions of times or creating their own versions of it. Feminists and scholars have since attempted to keep …

Between The Margins And The Mainstream: The Case Of Women's Rights, Hilary Charlesworth, Christine M. Chinkin

Book Chapters

This chapter investigates the conceptual limits of the field of women’s rights. It identifies two main currents of activity in the field: the elaboration of human rights standards, particularly through the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women of 1979; and the development of the ‘Women, Peace and Security’ agenda by the UN Security Council since 2000. Both areas are limited in their understandings of the diverse lives of women. The chapter argues that campaigns for the recognition of women’s rights shuttle between the mainstream and the margins of international law and that the structural …

An Administrative Right To Be Free From Sexual Violence? Title Ix Enforcement In Historical And Institutional Perspective, Karen M. Tani

All Faculty Scholarship

One of the most controversial administrative actions in recent years is the U.S. Department of Education’s campaign against sexual assault on college campuses. Using its authority under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (mandating nondiscrimination on the basis of sex in all educational programs and activities receiving federal funds), the Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has launched an enforcement effort that critics denounce as aggressive, manipulative, and corrosive of individual liberties. Missing from the commentary is a historically informed understanding of why this administrative campaign unfolded as it did. This Essay offers crucial context by reminding readers …

#Sayhername Captured: Using Video To Challenge Law Enforcement Violence Against Women, Amber Baylor

Faculty Scholarship

Recorded encounters between women of color and police officers have been invaluable in bringing the reality of these interactions into the living rooms of otherwise unknowing Americans. The recordings are instrumental pieces of documentation and evidence, with the power to impact verdicts and galvanize the domestic struggle for human rights outside of the courtroom. They also are fraught with ethical issues that must be addressed by attorneys and activists hoping they effect change. Complexities such as implicit biases, editing and sourcing of videos, anonymity for those attacked and bystanders, and vicarious trauma on affected communities complicate use of violent police …

Taming The Tigers: Domestic Violence, Legal Professionalism, And Well-Being, Jill C. Engle

Journal Articles

Domestic violence kills thousands of American women every year. In 2013, one of them was my client. My law school clinic represented a woman divorcing her abusive husband after twenty years of marriage. Three days after we served him with the divorce complaint, he walked into the grocery store where she worked and shot her dead. He then turned the gun on himself, and died from self-inflicted gunshot wounds. The lead student working her case listened in horror as one of our local colleagues who had heard the breaking news described it to her in a phone call to the …

Freedom From Violence And The Law: A Global Perspective In Light Of Chinese Domestic Violence Law, 2015, Rangita De Silva De Alwis, Jeni Klugman

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Provocative Defense, Aya Gruber

Publications

It is common wisdom that the provocation defense is, quite simply, sexist. For decades, there has been a trenchant feminist critique that the doctrine reflects and reinforces masculine norms of violence and shelters brutal domestic killers. The critique is so prominent that it appears alongside the doctrine itself in leading criminal law casebooks. The feminist critique of provocation embodies several claims about provocation's problematically gendered nature, including that the defense is steeped in chauvinist history, treats culpable sexist killers too leniently, discriminates against women, and expresses bad messages. This Article offers a (likely provocative) defense of the provocation doctrine. While …

Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women, Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, Andrea J. Ritchie, Rachel Anspach, Rachel Gilmer, Luke Harris

Faculty Scholarship

Say Her Name sheds light on Black women’s experiences of police violence in an effort to support a gender-inclusive approach to racial justice that centers all Black lives equally. It is our hope that this document will serve as a tool for the resurgent racial justice movement to mobilize around the stories of Black women who have lost their lives to police violence ...Our goal is not to offer a comprehensive catalog of police violence against Black women – indeed, it would be impossible to do so as there is currently no accurate data collection on police killings nationwide, no …

Safety Concerns, Fear And Precautionary Behavior Among College Women: An Exploratory Examination Of Two Measures Of Residency, Adam J. Pritchard, Carol E. Jordan, Pamela Wilcox

Office for Policy Studies on Violence Against Women Publications

This study examines the impact of two distinct measures of residency on college women's perceptions of safety, fear of crime and precautionary behaviors within both on-campus and off-campus areas. A student's current residency either on- or off-campus and a student's prior residency in a metropolitan, micropolitan or rural county prior to college are compared across these three aspects of campus safety. Current residency is found to be significantly related to a student's perceptions of safety in off-campus areas around campus, as well as the likelihood of engaging in precautionary behaviors such as avoiding specific locations on campus or carrying or …

Vawa @ 20: Building The Knowledge Base: Research Funding Through Vawa, Claire M. Renzetti, Rebecca M. Campbell, Allison Adair

Sociology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Gender Neutrality And The “Violence Against Women” Frame, Julie Goldscheid

Publications and Research

The challenge of sustaining a progressive framework that continues to resonate in the complex aftermath of a generation of reforms lies at the heart of many current debates about gender violence legal and policy reform. This Article addresses one longstanding issue: the way gender violence is framed in law, policy, and popular rhetoric. Many initiatives continue to use the gender-specific “violence against women” frame as a default description. That “woman-specific” frame, developed in service of feminist goals such as foregrounding and challenging gender bias and fostering more inclusive delivery of social and other services, now raises empirical, theoretical, political and …

Criminal Justice In Indian Country, Sarah Deer

Faculty Scholarship

On March 7,2013, President Obama signed the 2013 Violence Against Women Act Re-authorization ("VAWA 2013"). Contained within that legislation is a partial re-authorization of tribal criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians, which is a topic covered in this short article. VAWA 2013 recognizes that the inherent right of tribal nations includes criminal jurisdiction over non-Indian defendants accused of domestic violence. The topics discussed in this article-statistical evidence, interdiction of violence, and protecting Native women-will likely become even more important as tribal leaders and jurists consider the future of tribal self-determination and seek to realize the full potential of the changes created by …

Note: Aimed At Protecting Ethnic Groups Or Women? A Look At Forced Pregnancy Under The Rome Statute, Alyson M. Drake

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Combating Acid Violence In Bangladesh, India, And Cambodia, Sital Kalantry, Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum

Avon Global Center for Women and Justice and Dorothea S. Clarke Program in Feminist Jurisprudence

This Report is the first comprehensive, comparative study of acid violence that examines the underlying causes, its consequences, and the multiple barriers to justice for its victims. Acid attacks, like other forms of violence against women, are not random or natural phenomena. Rather, they are social phenomena deeply embedded in a gender order that has historically privileged patriarchal control over women and justified the use of violence to “keep women in their places.”

Through an in-depth study of three countries, the authors of the Report argue that the due diligence standard can be a powerful tool for state and non-state …

Gender Justice In The Americas: A Transnational Dialogue On Violence, Sexuality, Reproduction, And Human Rights University, Human Rights Clinic, Centro De Derechos Humanos De La Universidad Diego Portales, Center For Reproductive Rights

Human Rights Institute

On February 23-25, 2011, over 100 women's rights, gender, and sexuality advocates and scholars from twenty countries in North, South, and Central America and the Caribbean gathered at the University of Miami in Miami, Florida to attend a groundbreaking convening, Gender Justice in the Americas: A Transnational Dialogue on Violence, Sexuality, Reproduction, and Human Rights. The Convening, hosted by the University of Miami School of Law Human Rights Clinic, University of Diego Portales Human Rights Center, the Center for Reproductive Rights, and Columbia Law School Human Rights Institute, brought together key players in the region to exchange views and …

Have Truth And Reconciliation Commissions Helped Remediate Human Rights Violations Against Women? An Analysis Of The Past And Formula For The Future, Peggy Maisel

Faculty Scholarship

Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRCs) have investigated human rights violations and abuses in a wide range of countries and communities over the last thirty-five years. Created by people who believe finding truth through an examination of the past is necessary to build social and political trust, the goal of these processes has been to make findings and recommendations in order to strengthen or aid the transition to democracy, reduce conflict and create a basis for long term reconciliation, facilitate some form of transitional or restorative justice, and begin the process of change needed to avoid similar human rights violations in …

Relationship And Injury Trends In The Homicide Of Women Across The Lifespan: A Research Note, Carol E. Jordan, Adam J. Pritchard, Danielle Duckett, Pamela Wilcox, Tracey Corey, Mandy Combest

Office for Policy Studies on Violence Against Women Publications

In 2006, more than 3,600 women in the United States lost their lives to homicide. Descriptive data regarding homicides of women are beginning to reveal important complexities regarding victim–offender relationships, severity of injury, and age of female homicide victim. More specifically, there is some indication that the correlation between victim–offender relationship and injury severity may be conditional, depending on victim age. This retrospective review accessed medical examiner records of female homicide victims from 2002 through 2004, and its findings offer additional illumination on the trends in associations of injury and relationship variables in the homicide of women over their life …

From Violence Against Women To Women's Violence In Haiti, Benedetta Faedi Duramy

Publications

Much of the current scholarship, as well as international policy studies focusing on civil conflicts and armed violence, has primarily construed women as victims and men as perpetrators of violence. Although this prevalent interpretation certainly reflects conventional wisdom and tells part of a true war story, the remainder, which has been very much less publicized and addressed, also perceives women as participants in violence and men occasionally as victims. This Article joins the chorus of scholars that have only recently begun to highlight the flaws of this common belief and conversely, describe female participation in conflict and armed violence, often …

The Importation Of Female Genital Mutilation To The West: The Cruelest Cut Of All, Patricia A. Broussard

Journal Publications

THE RECENT WIDESPREAD IMMIGRATION of African and Middle Eastern people and the importation of their traditions and practices into Western societies have given Westerners a firsthand view of cultural practices once shielded by distance, silence, and a bit of disinterest. Such is the case with Female Genital Mutilation ("FGM"). Prior to its importation, most Westerners had not heard the term female genital mutilation and certainly did not know what its impact has been on girls and women in the countries that practice it.

This Article will explore the phenomenon of the importation of the practice of female genital mutilation to …

Advancing The Study Of Violence Against Women: Evolving Research Agendas Into Science, Carol E. Jordan

Office for Policy Studies on Violence Against Women Publications

Decades of research produced by multiple disciplines has documented withering rates of violence against women in the United States and around the globe. To further an understanding of gendered violence, a field of research has developed, but recent critiques have highlighted weaknesses that inhibit a full scientific exploration of these crimes and their impacts. This review extends beyond prior reviews to explore the field’s unique challenges, its community of scientists, and the state of its written knowledge. The review argues for moving beyond “research agendas” and proposes creation of a transdisciplinary science for the field of study of violence against …

Advancing The Study Of Violence Against Women: Response To Commentaries And Next Steps, Carol E. Jordan

Office for Policy Studies on Violence Against Women Publications

No abstract provided.

Obstacles On The Road To Gender Justice: The International Criminal Tribunal For Rwanda As Object Lesson, Beth Van Schaack

Faculty Publications

Although the substantive law concerned with gender violence is now well established, and the principle of legality can no longer serve as a barrier to prosecutions for gender violence, significant obstacles remain to ensuring a robust system of gender justice in international criminal law in the face of continued violations. These obstacles are less visible than defects in positive law because they emerge in the practice of international criminal law at crucial yet shrouded stages of the penal process: investigation, charging, pre-trial plea negotiations, trial preparation, theprovision of protective measures, and appeals. Most importantly, strong positive law is irrelevant where …

Female Genital Mutilation: Exploring Strategies For Ending Ritualized Torture; Shaming, Blaming, And Utilizing The Convention Against Torture, Patricia A. Broussard

Journal Publications

The intent of this article is to graphically describe female genital mutilation (FGM); discuss the background of FGM and its health, psychological, and social implications; propose some workable solutions to ending FGM; and raise the level of awareness of the pain and suffering of women around the world. In part, this article will discuss invoking the Convention against Torture against those nations unwilling to end this horrific practice. There is also a caveat to this article: the author acknowledges that discussing solutions to the practice of FGM is not a simplistic and straight-forward endeavor. Solutions to ending FGM are as …

The Health Implications Of Violence Against Women: Untangling The Complexities Of Actual And Chronic Effects: Part Two, Carol E. Jordan

Office for Policy Studies on Violence Against Women Publications

No abstract provided.

The Health Implications Of Violence Against Women: Untangling The Complexities Of Acute And Chronic Effects: Part One, Carol E. Jordan

Office for Policy Studies on Violence Against Women Publications

No abstract provided.

Getting Away With Murder: Guatemala's Failure To Protect Women And Rodi Alvarado's Quest For Safety, Angélica Cházaro

Articles

This report examines the underlying conditions that cause women like Rodi to flee their home countries and seek protection elsewhere. The report starts with a description of the circumstances that led Rodi to leave Guatemala. It then analyzes the widespread violence against and murders of women in Guatemala, specifically focusing on the number of murders, the victims, the brutality of the crimes, the context in which they occur, and the theories behind the murders. It next looks to the aspects of the Guatemalan legal and judicial systems that render women vulnerable to violence and then fail to protect them. It …

The Gender Of Jus Cogens, Christine M. Chinkin, Hilary Charlesworth

Book Chapters

Defenders of the notion of jus cogens often explain its basis as the collective international, rather than the individual national, good. On this analysis, principles of jus cogens play a similar role in the international legal system to that played by constitutional guarantees of rights in domestic legal systems. Thus states, as national political majorities, accept the limitation of their freedom of choice "in order to reap the rewards of acting in ways that would elude them under pressures of the moment." Among those jurists who accept the category of jus cogens, however, continuing controversy remains over what norms …

Intimate Partner Violence: Implications For The Domestic Relations Practitioner, Carol E. Jordan

Office for Policy Studies on Violence Against Women Publications

No abstract provided.