In spite of the conceptual difference between the words sex (indicating biological differences between men and women) and gender (which refers to social and cultural norms), for long time patriarchal stereotypes based on gender have justified discriminatory treatments against women. This made necessary a massive legal effort for erasing gender discrimination as well as the...
Protecting women from violence: a European comparative analysis from domestic norms to the Istanbul Convention
In the European context, constitutional and legislative provisions as well as international conventions prohibits violence against women. Notably, in 2014 the Council of Europe (CoE) so-called Istanbul Convention entered into force, providing for a wide range of measures against specific crimes (such as female genital mutilation, forced marriage, stalking, forced abortion, and forced sterilization) and...
The role of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in protecting women against endemic violence.
In some Latin-American countries, violence and discrimination against women is an endemic issue. Starting from the 2009 Cotton Field case [González et al (‘Cotton Field‘) v México, Series C 205 (16 November 2009)], the IACtHR has converted itself in a human rights court leader in judging under the gender perspective paradigm. Thus, this paper will...
The role of Sharia in women‘s rights in Iran: promotion and restriction
The idea that a dual system exists in Muslim countries, one de jure legal system and one based on sharia, has generated a plethora of debates on the mutual relations between these two systems. This relationship is made more complex due to the fact that in some Muslim countries –as in Iran – sharia is...