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Human Rights, Violence against Women, and State Responsibility in Latin America: Feminicidio meets Due Diligence

Sun, August 17, 12:30 to 1:30pm, TBA

Abstract

Feminicidio is a term coined by Latin American feminist scholars and human rights activists engaged in the combat of violence against women Latin America. This concept enshrines the notion of state responsibility for systemic gendered violence that results in women’s deaths, whether at the hands of private or state actors. The principle of due diligence in international human rights law also establishes that states can be held responsible for the actions of private actors. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) first applied it in the landmark case of Velásquez Rodríguez vs. Honduras. Since then, feminist scholars and activists appropriated the concept to push the boundaries of state responsibility for violence against women. In particular, they have mobilized it through the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the reports of the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, and the work of the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR). This paper examines the meeting of the concept of feminicidio and the principle of due diligence as part of a broader transnational movement that has constructed violence against women as a human rights violation. The paper focuses on the feminist human rights scholars and activists’ mobilization of these concepts in the case of González and others (“Cotton Field”) vs. Mexico at the IACtHR, in which the Court ruled that the Mexican state had failed to prevent, punish, and properly investigate the deaths of women in Ciudad Juárez.

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