CEDAW Committee Decisions Relating to Violence Against Women and Girls
Published on Exchange Chambers, December 2021. Part 2 of the 16 Days of Activism series. Part 1 is here.
Following my overview of the international legal framework for addressing violence against women and girls, this second piece examines the specific decisions of the CEDAW Committee — the body of independent experts that monitors implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.
The CEDAW Committee has developed a substantial body of jurisprudence through its decisions on individual communications, its Concluding Observations on state party reports, and its General Recommendations — in particular General Recommendation No. 19 (1992) and General Recommendation No. 35 (2017), both addressing gender-based violence against women.
These decisions are not merely of academic interest to practitioners in England and Wales. Given that the UK has ratified both the Convention and its Optional Protocol, the Committee’s views have persuasive force in domestic proceedings. As our domestic courts continue to develop their understanding of coercive and controlling behaviour, the Committee’s framework for understanding gender-based violence as a structural — not merely individual — phenomenon is of real practical importance.