About the author(s):
Katharine Fortin is an Associate Professor at Utrecht University where she teaches IHL and IHRL. Before joining Utrecht University, she worked at the ICTY, ICC and Norton Rose Fulbright. She is the author of The Accountability of Armed Groups under Human Rights Law (Oxford University Press, 2017) which won the 2018 Lieber Prize. She has written widely about the framework of law that applies to armed groups in non-international armed conflicts and is one of the editors of the Armed Groups and International Law blog.
This is not specifically on armed groups, but probably of interest to some of the readers of this blog focusing on armed conflict and sexual violence.
The Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, Ms. Dubravka Šimonovi? took up function as Special Rapporteur on 1 August 2015 and intends to, inter alia, focus on the legal and policy frameworks of her mandate and the international human rights mechanisms to discuss the gap in incorporating and implementing the international and regional standards related to violence against women.
The Special Rapporteur considers that the discussion on the adequacy of the international legal framework on violence against women initiated by the former mandate holder should continue and she wishes to secure views from different stakeholders, including States, National Human Rights Institutions, Non-governmental organizations, as well as members of academia.
Taking into consideration the important role that different stakeholders play in reinforcing universal human rights standards, she would be very interested to receive input and views on the following questions:
- Do you consider that there is a need for a separate legally binding treaty on violence against women with its separate monitoring body?
- Do you consider that there is an incorporation gap of the international or regional human rights norms and standards?
- Do you believe that there is a lack of implementation of the international and regional legislation into the domestic law?
- Do you think that there is a fragmentation of policies and legislation to address gender-based violence?
- Could you also provide your views on measures needed to address this normative and implementation gap and to accelerate prevention and elimination of violence against women?
All submissions should be sent by 1 October 2016 to vaw@ohchr.org.