The European Court of Human Rights, German National Belonging, and the Prevention of Sexual Violence

• In Event: 600 - Section on Crime, Law and Deviance Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 07. Global Criminology and International Law

Abstract

This paper examines how the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) assesses explanations of sexual violence against women and/or children perpetrated by German and non-German men in these men’s complaints against Germany from a feminist intersectional perspective. At stake in these complaints is a challenge to the actions of the German state to prevent sexual violence. The question guiding this analysis is whether the decisions of the ECtHR reproduce, reinforce, or challenge German “political projects of belonging” (Yuval-Davis 2006) that are increasingly anchored in a belief in gender equality as a fundamental German and European value and in a commitment to the rule of law. In this paper, I thus engage in a critical analysis of conceptualizations of violence against women and children that emerge in German policy in the context of the politics of immigration and integration, and the prevention of violence to show how they are tied to political projects of belonging.

Author

• Paulina Garcia del Moral, University of Toronto