The Making and Unmaking of Femicidio/Feminicidio Laws in Mexico and Nicaragua

• In Event: 4271 - Legal Resistance

Abstract

This article compares the trajectory of laws criminalizing femicide (femicidio) and feminicide (feminicidio) in Mexico and Nicaragua, two countries in which feminists engaged in legal activism in order to increase state accountability for crimes against women. Through an examination of these two cases, we demonstrate the importance of both local political conditions and supranational legal opportunities in shaping regional variation in the implementation of human rights norms on gender violence. Specifically, we show how the criminalization of feminicidio in Mexico resulted from a successful naming and shaming campaign on the part of local feminist actors as well as legal mobilization in various supranational arenas, whereas in Nicaragua, the codification of femicidio resulted from the state’s cooptation of feminist demands in a context of highly centralized political power. We also examine the unmaking of these laws through their perversion in practice (Mexico) and their intentional undermining (Nicaragua) at the hands of the state. Our analysis complicates the notion that states enact legislation against gender violence merely because they are invested in international legitimacy, and instead proposes an alternative framework for analyzing the socio-political contexts in which such laws are enacted.

Authors

• Paulina Garcia del Moral, University of Guelph

• Pamela Jane Neumann, Bucknell University