Smet M.
Sexual Violence Against Women in Armed Conflict - Council of Europe. Council of Europe; 2009.
Publisher's VersionAbstracthttp://assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/Xref-DocDetails-EN.asp?fileid=12691&...
Sexual violence against women in armed conflict is a crime against humanity, a war crime, and an unacceptable – but, unfortunately, effective – weapon of war. Raping, sexually assaulting and mutilating, forcibly impregnating and infecting with HIV/AIDS the wives, daughters and mothers of the “enemy” not only have terrible physical and psychological effects on the victims themselves, but are capable of disrupting, if not destroying, whole communities.
It has taken centuries for sexual violence against women in armed conflict to be outlawed. It was not until 2008 that the international community, via United Nations Security Council Resolution 1820 on women, peace and security, recognised that rape and other forms of sexual violence can constitute a war crime, a crime against humanity, and a constitutive act with respect to genocide.
However, sexual violence against women in armed conflict is unfortunately still common – it was a constitutive feature of the Balkan wars little more than a decade ago. Today, the main victims of this crime are found in the Democratic Republic of Congo (especially in Kivu) and in Sudan (especially in Darfur). To this day, thousands of victims are denied access to justice, reparation and redress. The lives of the victims remain blighted in many ways while the perpetrators enjoy almost complete impunity for their crimes.
McGlynn C.
Rape, Torture and the European Convention on Human Rights. The International and Comparative Law Quarterly. 2009;58 (3) :565-595.
Publisher's VersionAbstracthttp://www.jstor.org/stable/25622227
*This full article is available through this link. This article may be available free of charge to those with university credentials.
This article examines the legacy of the ground-breaking judgment in Aydin v Turkey in which the European Court of Human Rights held that rape could constitute torture. Ten years on, it examines jurisprudential developments in the conceptualisation of torture in the specific context of the offence of rape. It is argued that while all rapes should be found to satisfy the minimum threshold for Article 3, rape does not per se satisfy the severity of harm criterion for torture. Nonetheless, where the severity of harm is established, the case is made that the purposive element of torture is satisfied in all cases of rape. Finally, in relation to the scope of State responsibility for rape, particularly by private individuals, the article suggests that while the Court's achievements in recognizing rape as a serious harm are considerable, there remain further avenues for jurisprudential development which would ensure that rape as a form of torture is recognized in a wider range of situations and circumstances than is currently the case.
G.D. and S.F. v. France.; 2009.
Publisher's VersionAbstracthttp://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/jurisprudence.htm
The authors are two French women who are unmarried and have no children. Both authors were automatically given their father’s last name pursuant to a customary rule in force at the time of their birth.
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Although the authors were abandoned by their fathers by an early age, raised exclusively by their mothers, and used their mother’s family name unofficially, they continue to be officially registered under their father’s family name. On 26 May 2006, after unsuccessfully pursuing a number of administrative procedures at the domestic level, the authors appealed to the Committee under Article 16(1), which requires non-discrimination between the rights of husband and wife, including the right to choose a family name and to transmit the family name to children.
The Committee, while acknowledging the hardship encountered by the authors, held the communication inadmissible because the authors did not qualify as victims under the meaning of Article 2 of the Optional Protocol. Since both women were unmarried, did not live in husband-and-wife relationships, and did not have children, they could not assert their rights under Article 16 of the Convention, whose beneficiaries are only married women, women living in de facto union, or mothers.
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Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse (Explanatory Report). Council of Europe. 2009.
Publisher's VersionAbstracthttp://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/Commun/QueVoulezVous.asp?NT=201&CM=8&DF=06/07/2015&CL=ENG
I. The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe took note of this Explanatory Report at its 1002nd meeting held at its Deputies' level, on 12 July 2007. The Convention was opened for signature in Lanzarote (Spain), on 25 October 2007, on the occasion of the 28th Conference of European Ministers of Justice.
II. The text of this explanatory report does not constitute an instrument providing an authoritative interpretation of the Convention, although it might be of such a nature as to facilitate the application of the provisions contained therein.
