The Kleh Lecture
Normativity without legality in the sphere of violence against women: challenges in the United Nations human rights system.
By Rashida Manjoo
Thursday, September 26th, 2019
12:45 – 2:00 pm
For over three decades, the global movement against violence against women has worked to transform the place of women and the status of gender-based violence within the human rights discourse. The Vienna World Conference on Human Rights in 1993 triggered an important development in the recognition of women’s rights as human rights, and also, violence against women as a human rights violation. This has led to important initiatives related to standard setting and monitoring in the field of women’s rights broadly, and violence against women in particular. The acknowledgement of violence against women as a human rights issue has led the General Assembly, the Human Rights Council and the Security Council to pass numerous resolutions on the issue. It is important to celebrate the milestones achieved in advancing women’s rights, but to also take cognisance of the enormous challenges we continue to face in the struggle to promote and protect the human rights of women. As highlighted in the report of the UN System Task Team on the Post-2015 UN Development Agenda, inequalities, including gender discrimination and gender-based violence, need to be one of the top priorities of concern for the post-2015 agenda.
The lecture will review the normative frameworks and structures of the regional and international human rights systems, and other relevant developments pertaining to the issue of violence against women, including the recent adoption of a treaty by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) i.e. the Convention to End Violence and Harassment in the Workplace.
About the Speaker
Rashida Manjoo is a Professor in the Department of Public Law, University of Cape Town, South Africa, where she convenes the Human Rights Program.
Prof Manjoo has over four decades of experience in social justice and human rights work both in South Africa and abroad. Until July 2015, she held the position of United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, its Causes and Consequences, a post she was appointed to in 2009 by the United Nations Human Rights Council. Her UN work over six years has included monitoring and reporting on States’ compliance in responding to and preventing violence against women, its causes and consequences, both generally and in different country contexts. She has particularly highlighted the interaction of interpersonal, communal, institutional and structural factors that negatively impact the interdependence and indivisibility of the human rights of women; and the challenges of the normative gap in international law on the issue of violence against women.
Prof Manjoo is the former Parliamentary Commissioner of the Commission on Gender Equality, an institution created by the Constitution of South Africa, with a mandate to oversee the promotion and protection of gender equality and women’s rights. She has also been involved in social context training for judges and lawyers, where she has designed both content and methodology.
She has authored several journal articles, book chapters and reports, including the most recent co-edited book ‘The Legal Protection of women from violence – normative gaps in international law’.
This lecture is made possible through the generosity of Patricia and William H. Kleh (’71), who established the William & Patricia Kleh Visiting Professorship in International Law in February 2011.