Guest Blogger: Jayne Stoyles

We are delighted to welcome Jayne Stoyles (left) as today's guest blogger.
Jayne is a lawyer, the first Executive Director of the Canadian Centre for International Justice, and an Ashoka Canada Fellow. A decision issued recently in a human rights case in which CCIJ has submitted a friend of the court brief forms the core of her guest post below.
Prior to joining CCIJ, Jayne served for several years as the Program Director of the NGO Coalition for the International Criminal Court in New York, a global network of 2,000 NGOs that helped bring about the establishment of the Court and that was twice nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize during her tenure. She: was also a Senior Adviser to the Institute for Global Policy in New York on issues of human security, UN reform and international justice; provided International Humanitarian Law training for the Red Cross; and taught international law at Carleton University in Canada.
Jayne has spent time in Africa, Latin America, and a First Nations community in northern Canada with a variety of volunteer placements, including working with Centro de Derechos de Mujeres in Honduras on updates to the criminal code from a gender perspective. She is the 2010 winner of the Walter S. Tarnopolsky Human Rights Award and of the Lord Reading Law Society Human Rights Award, was named one of Ottawa’s Top 50 People in 2008 by Ottawa Life Magazine, and has been featured in Canadian legal magazine The Precedent and in the on-line Charity Village Spotlight. She has just accepted a position on the Board of Directors of the International Institute for Criminal Investigations, an international organization of professional investigators, lawyers and academics dedicated to the training and deployment of professionals for the investigation of atrocities. Jayne regularly speaks, writes and provides media interviews about the making of the ICC and international justice issues from a Canadian perspective.
Like Pam Spees, Valerie Oosterveld, and Mary Hansel before her, Jayne would like to dedicate her IntLawGrrls contribution to the beloved Rhonda Copelon.

Heartfelt welcome!

On the job! Women's clinic director

(On the Job! pays occasional notice to interesting intlaw job notices)

CUNY School of Law welcomes "applicants with a demonstrated commitment to our social justice mission" for the tenured or tenure-track position of Director of its 18-year-old International Women's Human Rights Clinic. Co-founded by Rhonda Copelon (an IntLawGrrls foremother), it is 1 of 7 CUNY law clinics.

Minimum requirements include (full description here):

► J.D., L.L.B., or Ph.D. in a law-related discipline required.

► At least 5 years of post-law school work experience.

► Background in gender studies and advocacy.

► Experience in client representation and collaboration with international and domestic partners and/or courts.

► Clinical teaching or supervisory experience.

Applications are now being accepted; the position will remain open until filled. Details on how to apply or obtain additional information here.

No Alien Tort Liability for Corporations?

A serious, perhaps, mortal blow has been dealt to the Alien Tort Statute by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The ATS creates federal jurisdiction over

any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.

In its opinion in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., however, the Second Circuit dramatically narrowed the scope of the ATS by ruling that it did not apply to "juridical persons," meaning corporations.

Since the groundbreaking judgment in Filártiga v. Peña-Irala (2d Cir. 1980), which was brought by my dearly-missed colleague Rhonda Copelon and the Center for Constitutional Rights, the ATS has offered victims of human rights abuses the prospect of access to U.S. courts.

In Kiobel, the oil company defendants stood accused of aiding and abetting the Nigerian government's campaign of human rights abuses in the Niger Delta, Nigeria's oil-producing region. The litany of human rights violations at issue in the case included allegations of torture, arbitrary detention, and crimes against humanity. Unfortunately, these allegations can no longer be heard in U.S.courts. The Second Circuit ruled on September 17th that corporations cannot be sued under the Alien Tort Statute because they are “juridical” entities rather than natural persons. Should this ruling be adopted throughout the U.S. court system, it would gut the scope of the ATS, making it very likely that corporations participating in human rights abuses will escape any accountability for their conduct.

The Niger Delta is home to 31 million people. (map credit) Since oil exploration began some 50 years ago, the region has suffered an Exxon Valdez-sized oil spill every year. As you can imagine, these spills have devastated the local population. In 2009 Amnesty International reported that the oil industry in the Niger Delta of Nigeria

has brought impoverishment, conflict, human rights abuses and despair to the majority of the people in the oil-producing areas.

Local populations have failed to benefit from the wealth generated by oil production, even as they suffer its environmental consequences. Before being despoiled by oil pollution, the Niger Delta was one of the most important wetlands in the world. BP's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico (see previous Intlawgrrl posts here, here and here) focused public attention, albeit briefly, on the ongoing environmental devastation in the Niger Delta. (You can hear an interview I did with WBEZ Chicago Public Radio’s Worldview Program on this topic here.)

Just last year, Shell Oil settled an ATS case alleging the company’s complicity in the hanging deaths of nine Ogoni activists, including the world-renown poet Ken Siro Wiwa. Cases alleging similar human rights abuses in oil production have been brought against Talisman Energy for its activities in the Sudan, Unocal for its activities in Burma, and Chevron for its activities in Ecuador. (News on that last suit here.)

Second Circuit Judge José A. Cabranes interpreted international law precedents extremely narrowly in order to concluded that, throughout history,

the principle of individual liability for violations of international law has been limited to natural persons—not ‘juridical' persons such as corporations.

This despite the fact that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights explicitly applies to "every individual and every organ of society." Over the objections of Judge Pierre N. Leval, Judge Cabranes, joined by Judge Dennis Jacobs concluded that that U.S. courts lacked jurisdiction over ATS claims brought against corporate entities.

Given that oil production often takes place in countries without robust judicial systems, this cramped ruling virtually assures that victims will have no avenue of redress.

The United States consumes a quarter of the world’s oil—10% of which comes from Nigeria. That makes the United States the largest purchaser of oil produced in the Niger Delta. Our participation as end-consumers makes us unwitting collaborators to abuse in Nigeria and around the world. We surely have an interest in giving victims of these human rights abuses a forum in which to seek justice.

Guest blogger: Mary Hansel

It's IntLawGrrls' great pleasure to welcome Mary Hansel (right) as today's guest blogger.
Mary is a litigation attorney and Legal Fellow with the International Center for Transitional Justice, where she has focused on issues of U.S. accountability for torture and other detainee abuses.
She received her B.A. in Psychology from Vassar College and her J.D. from the University of Southern California Law School. She then earned her LL.M in Public International Law at the London School of Economics; Professor Christine Chinkin supervised Mary's dissertation.
Mary has published several scholarly articles on international law and human rights. She recently contributed a chapter for the forthcoming book Feminist Perspectives on Transitional Justice (Intersentia, 2011), to be edited by Professor Martha Albertson Fineman, Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Law at Emory University in Atlanta, and Dr. Estelle Zinsstag, Director of the Africa Justice Project at the Oxford War Crimes Centre.
In her guest post below, Mary surveys jurisprudence that supports recognizing domestic violence as torture. She dedicates her post to Rhonda Copelon, already an IntLawGrrls foremother. Copelon's work, Mary writes,

broadened my thinking on women’s rights.

Heartfelt welcome!

Domestic violence as torture

(Thanks to IntLawGrrls for the opportunity to contribute this guest post)

Recently, reports of detainee abuse in the “war on terror” have dominated the international legal discourse on torture. This focus on detainee abuse, however, should not obscure developments concerning the most common and pervasive form of torture: domestic violence.

Last summer, a landmark judgment for victims of domestic violence, Opuz v. Turkey (2009), was handed down by the European Court of Human Rights (below right). The Court found the Republic of Turkey liable for torture or inhuman or degrading treatment, under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, because local officials had failed to prevent and redress the abuse of Nahide Opuz and her mother by Opuz' husband. The Court concluded that the state’s response to the abuse “was manifestly inadequate to the gravity of the offences in question,” in spite of noting that the Turkish authorities “did not remain totally passive” and that “ill-treatment must attain a minimum level of severity if it is to fall within the scope of Article 3.” Turkey was ordered to pay Opuz 30,000 euros in compensation for violating Articles 2, 3, and 14 of the European Convention.

For years, human rights bodies have recognized that state failures with respect to domestic violence can amount to torture. An example is General Comment No. 2 - Implementation of article 2 by States parties, issued in 2008 by the Committee Against Torture.

The ECHR decision in Opuz, however, seems to mark the first time that an international or regional court has held a state accountable for domestic violence, between partners, under a theory of torture — thus establishing the justiciability of the concept. Yet this aspect of the holding has received surprisingly little media attention.

The lack of coverage may be partially due to the fact that, as IntLawGrrl Stephanie Farrior pointed out in a prior post, the Opuz judgment was also remarkable in other respects, including its acknowledgment of domestic violence as a potential form of gender discrimination.

Women’s rights advocates have been pushing for greater recognition of domestic violence as a breach of international human rights for decades, and have made enormous jurisprudential strides. Seminal cases such as Velásquez Rodríguez v. Honduras, decided in 1998 by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (left), helped establish the concept of state accountability for transgressions by non-state actors. Moreover, the traditional view that domestic violence is inherently a family matter beyond the purview of the state has been challenged by cases like Bevacqua and S. v. Bulgaria, rendered by the European Court of Human Rights in 2008.

As a result, state failures to prevent and redress domestic violence can now be understood to violate a range of human rights. The late Rhonda Copelon (right), to whom I have dedicated this post, explained in early 2009:

The next step in this legal and cultural revolution is to treat gender violence as torture. So far, rape — in war, by the state and where the state does not take measures against it — has been acknowledged in international law as an act of torture. Domestic violence — the most private and most common of all forms of gender violence — is on its way.

The Opuz holding is an important milestone in this regard.

The benefits of a “torture” designation are manifold, and have normative as well as practical value in enhancing legal protections for domestic violence victims:

► These victims of stand to gain from the jus cogens status of the prohibition of torture. It confers a heightened level of international condemnation and sends a clear message that domestic violence is an unqualified violation of human rights.

► Another benefit is the resultant availability of the protections and complaint mechanisms that exist for torture. These can bolster international legal protection for victims of domestic violence.

► A third benefit is the synergistic effect of combining the efforts and resources of advocates focused on feminist issues with those of international human rights generalists.

As Copelon articulated:

Simply recognizing domestic violence as torture will not solve the problem of domestic violence. But . . . it will help make domestic violence a front burner issue, hastening both the impartiality, adequacy and appropriateness of official responses and the cultural revolution that demands absolute and unconditional condemnation of such violence.

Accordingly, as the world laments the mounting evidence of torture perpetrated in the “war on terror,” the same sense of indignation and urgency must be extended to the private torture that countless people endure on a daily basis.

Guest Blogger: Pam Spees

It's IntLawGrrls' great pleasure to welcome Pam Spees (left) as a guest blogger. Today she joins IntLawGrrl Valerie Oosterveld to contribute the joint post below from the Review Conference of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which began last week in Kampala, Uganda.
Pam is a senior staff attorney in the international human rights program at the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights. She has a background in international criminal and human rights law with a gender focus, as well as criminal trial practice. Prior to joining CCR, she practiced criminal law in Louisiana, where she primarily represented indigent persons in state and federal courts. In addition, she has worked as a consultant in international law with a focus on women's human rights, and previously served as Program Director of the Women's Caucus for Gender Justice, an international advocacy network dedicated to ensuring accountability for crimes of sexual and gender violence included in the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court. Pam now serves as an advisor to the Hague-based Women's Initiatives for Gender Justice, which monitors the Court and continues the Women's Caucus mission of advocating for accountability gender-based violence.
Pam and Valerie dedicate their guest post below to Rhonda Copelon (pictured below right in the post below), who passed away this past May 6. As they write below and as IntLawGrrl Rebecca Bratspies also has posted, Rhonda was a pathbreaking human rights lawyer and law professor. We're honored to recognize her as an IntLawGrrls foremother. Today Rhonda joins the other remarkable women on our list just below the "visiting from..." map at right.
Heartfelt welcome!

Gender and the Kampala ICC conference: Honoring Rhonda Copelon

(Delighted that guest blogger Pam Spees today joins IntLawGrrl Valerie Oosterveld in this contribution, another in IntLawGrrls' series of posts on the Kampala Conference)

KAMPALA, Uganda – The Review Conference of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court has been meeting here for one week now, and one theme that has woven itself throughout the various discussions is that the ICC and States Parties must pay attention to a number of gender issues.
► First, there is widespread agreement that the ICC must continue to prosecute gender-based crimes, such as rape and other forms of sexual violence targeted against women, girls, men, or boys during armed conflict. In official statements and in side-events, the high level of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is often noted.
► Second, during the stocktaking event on the impact on victims and affected communities, panelists and states commented on the Rome Statute's innovation of providing victims with specific status within the ICC’s proceedings.
It is exciting how states, intergovernmental organizations, and nongovernmental organizations are speaking of victim participation as being of crucial importance to the ICC and, moreover, are differentiating the ICC from all that has come before.
The Registrar of the ICC, Silvana Arbia (above left), noted that the ICC has received 2600 applications from individuals to be admitted as victim participants in the ICC process, of which more than 800 have been accepted by the Court. Even so, there is also agreement that the victim participation process is a new one. Accordingly, there have been growing pains in figuring out how best to identify, include, and equip victims for interaction within the ICC, while at the same time staying within the ICC’s budget limitations.
In this context, it is fitting to remember, and honor, Rhonda Copelon (below right), who passed away early in May. (Prior IntLawGrrls post.)
Rhonda was instrumental in founding the Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice, which successfully pressed for the inclusion of many gender-sensitive provisions within the Rome Statute. Under the leadership of Rhonda, joined by Alda Facio and Eleanor Conda, the Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice grew from a handful of committed feminist activists to over 300 supporters by the time of the 1998 adoption of the Rome Statute.
Here in Kampala, David Donat-Cattin of Parliamentarians for Global Action publicly recalled how Rhonda had helped to take an idea that no state was championing – of giving victims their own legal rights and therefore a legal voice within the ICC’s proceedings – and turn it into a defining characteristic of the ICC process.
Rhonda’s approach in this respect, and that of others in the Women's Caucus, was informed by the concerns about the disempowerment of women serving as victim-witnesses before the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and from the observations and experiences of feminist advocacy within national systems. In this respect, Rhonda’s vision of gender justice was, foremost, that the ICC should first do no harm.
While many international criminal law commentators have recognized the accomplishments of the Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice as including, for example, the crime against humanity of rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, and gender-based persecution in the Rome Statute, the Caucus’ focus was in fact much wider. Rhonda’s vision – and the vision of the many women working with her – was that the causes and consequences of armed conflict and mass atrocities are intensely gendered. The Caucus also fiercely advocated for the independence of the ICC, a move questioned by some as not being a 'gender' issue.
Remembering the road from Rome to Kampala is to remember Rhonda Copelon and her untiring dedication to gender justice. There is still a long road ahead and much work to do to ensure gender justice in the ICC and in domestic jurisdictions, but we will continue to travel that road with Rhonda’s example and energy as our guide.

In Passing: Rhonda Copelon

It is with a heavy heart that I write to tell you that my beloved CUNY colleague, friend, and mentor Professor Rhonda Copelon, died on May 6th, 2010 after a four year struggle with ovarian cancer. She will be greatly missed.
As a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, Rhonda’s groundbreaking work in Filártiga v. Peña-Irala (2d Cir. 1980) gave victims of international human rights abuses access to justice in United States courts. This case established that torture was a violation of the law of nations, a principle of which we seem to have lost sight in recent times. Using a hitherto obscure federal statute, the Alien Tort Claims Act, Rhonda’s advocacy paved the way for many high profile human rights cases, including the recently settled suit brought by Ken Saro Wiwa’s family against Shell Oil. Harold Koh has called this case the Brown v. Board of Education of International Human Rights.
Rhonda was also lead counsel in Harris v. McRae (1980), a pivotal case concerning the reproductive rights of poor women. Although successful in the lower courts, Rhonda’s loss at the Supreme Court haunted her for the rest of her life.
As a founding member of CUNY Law School, Rhonda poured her energy into establishing the International Women's Human Rights Clinic. Every year, students in the clinic work to protect the rights of women around the world and in the United States. The CUNY website has a marvelous video of Rhonda discussing her remarkable career in human rights.
In 2009, Rhonda was awarded the M. Shanara Gilbert Human Rights Award by the Society of American Law Teachers. On April 20, 2010, the Center for Constitutional Rights honored Rhonda for her life’s work and established the Copelon Fund for Gender Justice.
Rhonda was not just a great lawyer, she was also a generous mentor and friend to students, and young professionals. Her tireless advocacy on behalf of women will never be forgotten.
I've included below just a couple of tributes from women in international law whose lives Rhonda touched, and welcome you to add your thoughts in the comments section.

What a loss to the clinical community and to the ongoing struggle for women's human rights! Rhonda was an amazing, passionate, committed advocate for women's human rights. I first met her when I was at AU. Rather than being territorial towards a newcomer, she was supportive of all persons with a commitment to women's human rights, and worked tirelessly for the cause. She was loved and respected around the world. I saw her in action in Beijing at the Women's Conference in 1995, and had the opportunity to work together on a project with women's rights advocates from throughout Latin America to integrate a gender perspective into legal education. She was universally respected and admired and her legacy will be everlasting.

--Lauren Gilbert

I am so saddened at the passing of Rhonda Copelon. She was a brilliant lawyer and an inspiring teacher and a warm and generous person. I met Rhonda during the preparations for the Fourth World Conference on Women. I was not yet a lawyer and new to the world of U.N. conferences and human rights advocacy, and she was unfailingly supportive and always willing to share her expertise in navigating complicated issues and institutions. She has served as a model of engagement and accessibility to me and so many others. Her passing is a huge loss.

-- Rachel Rosenbloom

Inter-American Court rules against Mexico on gender violence in Ciudad Juárez

(In this post, Part 1 of a 2-part series on the "Juárez femicides" case, guest blogger Caroline Bettinger-López analyzes a recent judgment by the inter-American human rights court. Tomorrow, in Part 2, guest blogger Regina Austin will review films about the epidemic of violence at issue before the court.)

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has issued an important decision, in Spanish, in Caso González y otras v. México, known familiarly as the Campo Algodonero case.

Campo Algodonero concerns three in a fifteen-year series of hundreds of unsolved and poorly investigated disappearances, rapes, and murders of young, predominantly migrant women and girls in Ciudad Juárez, a Mexican city of 1.5 million people just across the border from El Paso, Texas.

In its decision handed down at the end of 2009, the Inter-American Court (logo above; courthouse below left) ruled that Mexico had violated both the 1978 American Convention of Human Rights and the 1994 Inter-American Convention on The Prevention, Punishment And Eradication of Violence Against Women, known as the Convention of Belém do Pará in recognition of the Brazilian city where it was adopted. It thus ordered Mexico to comply with a broad set of remedial measures, including a national memorial, renewed investigations, and reparations of over $200,000 each to the families in the suit.The decision is important for a number of reasons, including that, for the first time, the Court:

► Considered states’ affirmative obligations to respond to violence against women by private actors;

► Looked at the cases at issue in the context of mass violence against women and structural discrimination; and

► Found that gender-based violence can constitute gender discrimination.

By way of background, Professor Rhonda Copelon (left), CUNY School of Law, gave testimony testified as an expert in the case, and over 50 U.S.-based amici submitted a brief in the case, arguing that the longstanding failure to investigate, prosecute, or prevent the crimes in this case violated Mexico’s obligations under international human rights law. The arguments set out in Rhonda’s testimony and the amicus brief are clearly reflected in the Court’s decision.

(Note that the Campo Algodonero decision is directly relevant to the case of Jessica Gonzales v. United States, which has been filed with the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights by the Human Rights Institute at Columbia Law School, for which I am Deputy Director. This litigation on behalf of Jessica (right) (subsequent to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Castle Rock v. Gonzales (2005)) concerns the question of government’s affirmative obligations to protect domestic violence victim-survivors and their children from known risks posed by the perpetrators of domestic violence. (photo credit))

In this post, I set forth key points from the Campo Algodonero decision (a fuller summary is here). Page references are to the Spanish-language decision; an English version is expected soon.

The Court's jurisdiction
The Court concluded (p. 10) that it had jurisdiction over claims brought under Art. 7 of the Convention of Belém do Pará, which provides that states must condemn all forms of violence against women and agree to pursue, by all appropriate measures,

and without delay, policies to prevent, punish and eradicate such violence
through legal, legislative, administrative, and policy initiatives.

The Court futher concluded, however, that it did not have jurisdiction over claims brought directly under that Conventions' Article 8 -- by which states “agree to undertake progressively specific measures” to eradicate violence against women -- or 9 -- by which states “shall take special account” of vulnerable groups of women. The Court emphasized that Article 12 of the Convention provides specifically that the petition system focuses exclusively on Article 7. Still, the Court found that the various articles of the Convention -- including Articles 8 and 9 -- can be used to aid interpretation of Article 7 and of other pertinent Inter-American instruments.

This last pronouncement is important for future advocacy. The programs outlined in Article 8 give definition and specificity to the legal, legislative, policy, and administrative measures for eradicating violence against women that are specified in subsections (c), (e), and (h) of Article 7. Moreover, the measures articulated in Articles 7 and 8 should arguably be tailored to take “special account” of vulnerable groups of women, as per Article 9. Although the Court did not explicitly refer to Articles 8 and 9, they clearly were present in spirit.

Substantive law violations
The Court found (p. 30) that Mexico had violated numerous international legal obligations. Violated provisions of the American Convention included:

► Article 4, life

► Article 5, personal integrity

► Article 7, personal liberty

► Article 19, child

► Articles 8 and 25, judicial protection and due process

► Article 1.1, obligation to respect rights

► Article 2, duty to adopt domestic legal effects

The Court rejected the petitioners’ allegations of Mexico’s violation of Article 11, dignity and honor.

Violated provisions of the Convention of Belém do Pará included:

► Article 7(b), due diligence to prevent, investigate and impose penalties for violence against women

► Article 7(c), penal, civil, administrative provisions to prevent, punish and eradicate violence against women

In considering the violations, the Court reiterated the elements of due diligence originally articulated in the Court's seminal case, Velásquez Rodríguez (1988). By paragraph 236 of that case, relevant to the question of state responsibility for human rights violations committed by private actors are the duties to prevent, investigate, punish, and compensate. The Court further considered the element of discrimination that overlaid all these substantive law violations.

Reparations

The Court ordered vast reparations (p. 113), “keeping in mind the context of structural discrimination in which the facts took place.” With respect to investigation, the Court in paragraph 455 ordered the State to:

► Remove all obstacles to a full investigation;

► Include a gender perspective in the investigation;

► Provide resources necessary to the organs or individuals participating in the investigation to do an adequate, independent and impartial investigation; and

► Publicly announce the results of the process to Mexican society.

With respect to means of satisfaction, the Court ordered remedial measures including publication of the sentence, a public ceremony where the State recognizes responsibility, and a national memorial to the victims.

With respect to guarantees of non-repetition, the Court pointed in paragraph 495 to the lack of data and information that would allow it to evaluate the actions that Mexico has taken to respond to the problem in Juarez. The Court in paragraph 502 then ordered Mexico to:

► Standardize protocols used to investigate crimes related to disappearances, sexual violence, and murders of women, in conformity with international standards that include a gender perspective;

► Create a website and database of genetic information containing information pertaining to the disappeared/murdered women/girls; and

► Implement educational courses and capacity-building programs in human rights and gender.

With respect to the guarantees of rehabilitation, the Court ordered the State to offer free medical, psychological, and psychiatric care to the victims’ families.

With respect to indemnization/compensation, the Court ordered Mexico to pay over $200,000 each to the families in the suit, for material and moral harm.

Sources of fact and law

Interestingly, the Court looked to a variety of sources of fact and law in its decision (p. 39), including reports produced by the Inter-American Commission, the CEDAW Committee, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, Amnesty International, the Mexican government’s Commission to Prevent and Eradicate Violence Against Women in Ciudad Juárez, and decisions from the European Court of Human Rights, such as Opuz v. Turkey (2009) (prior IntLawGrrls post). It was not necessary for the Court to do this, since it is a court of law. Doing so is a positive sign, as it indicates that if there is an international trend, the Court might be willing to follow it.

Gender-based violence and discrimination
As the Court undertook its legal analysis, it continually referred (pp. 39, 63, 116) to the general phenomenon of epidemic levels of violence against young women in Juárez, and linked this context of violence against women to gender discrimination.

Judge Medina’s concurring opinion

Also noteworthy was one of the two concurring opinions filed along with the principal Campo Algodonero judgment; specifically, the concurrence by a jurist about whom IntLawGrrls previously have posted, Judge Cecilia Medina Quiroga (right), a Chilean law professor and expert on the law pertaining to violence against women. Medina’s concurrence argued that the Court should have found a violation of the prohibition against torture found in Article 5.2 of the American Convention.

Go On! "Preventing Torture"

(Go On! is an occasional item on symposia of interest.) Insufficiently noted when issued was a November 2007 statement on combating torture, set forth by the U.N. Committee Against Torture (CAT) in its General Comment No. 2.
The General Comment elaborates on Article 2 of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which states in full:

1. Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.
2. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political in stability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.
3. An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.

A careful look at the General Comment will be taken by a host of panelists at "Preventing Torture," a symposium to be held this Friday, March 28, 2008, at the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. As cosponsors -- the New York City Law Review, a student journal at the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law, and the International Human Rights Committee of the city's bar association -- put it in their conference brochure:

The General Comment addresses key fault lines in the absolute prohibition against torture and ill-treatment that have been opened in the name of counter-terrorism. It also underscores the applicability of the Convention to sexualized and gender violence, where perpetrated by state officials as well as where state officials acquiesce to private violence, including domestic violence.
Speakers will address the authority, adequacy, and policy implications of the General Comment. Since the U.S. is a State party to the CAT, speakers will also address the relevance of the Comment to current laws and practices of the Bush administration and to positive reforms and initiatives needed to bring U.S. law and practice into compliance with its international commitments to eliminate torture and ill-treatment in every sphere.

Among those speakers will be several women who're experts on these questions, a number of whom we've featured in prior posts. Among the CAT members who'll speak are Felice Gaer (top left), former Vice-Chair and current Rapporteur of CAT, as well as Co-Rapporteur for General Comment No. 2, and Nora Sveaass (bottom left), President of the Norwegian Psychological Association's Human Rights Committee. Other panelists will include: Patricia Viseur Sellers, former Legal Advisor for Gender-Related Crimes, International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia; New York University Professor Margaret L. Satterthwaite, Research Director of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice; CUNY Professor Rhonda Copelon, Director of the International Women's Human Rights Clinic; and Columbia Professor Betty Reardon, Founding Director Emeritus of the Peace Education Program.
Details here.

Go On! Conference on WWII Women Enslaved

(Go On! is an occasional item on symposia of interest.) Tomorrow marks the 1st day of a 4-day World Conference on Japanese Military Sexual Slavery, bringing together "scholars, non-governmental organizations, human rights activists, attorneys, artists, and most importantly, survivors." Concerned

about matters about which we too have posted (here, here, and here, and here), conference organizers aim

to coalesce around a unified plan of action for obtaining the recognition and justice due to aging survivors of Japan's Military Sexual Slavery brutally imposed during World War II (euphemistically known as "comfort women"). Japan's "comfort women" system was the largest sexual trafficking of women known to modern history, for which Japan has steadfastly refused to apologize.

There's an NGO conference tomorrow, followed by an academic conference on October 5, legal conference on October 6, and a vigil on the last day. All events are at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Speakers, particularly at the legal conference, include many women international law experts: Patricia Viseur Sellers, Office of the Prosecutor, International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia; Indai Lourdes Sajor, U.N. Development Programme; Indonesian lawyer and lawmaker Nursyahbani Katjasungkana; Rhonda Copelon, CUNY Law School; Dinah Shelton, George Washington School of Law; and Kathleen Kim, Loyola Law School.
(photo of Korean women subjected to slavery at Japanese hands from Seoul Times)