A study on the necessity of concluding a convention in the United Nations on violence against women

Governments can contribute to strengthening global norms to eliminate gender-based violence against women and girls, and can be inspired by their own commitment to those norms and the lessons learned from other jurisdictions to evolve and strengthen their own state practice. However, states can also undermine the strength of nascent global norms through weak or regressive state practice. The evidence is that properly tailored and appropriately supported international norms do have the potential to positively influence domestic state practice, and vice versa, but that the process is dynamic and slow. Multilateral commitments in the United Nations system and regional systems try to reinforce and accelerate these norms. A deeper understanding of these processes is essential for deepening state practice and therefore strengthening customary international law. Much has been achieved to try to influence the historical position that gender-based violence was a private family, cultural, or religious practice that was outside the purview of the state; that such violence was inevitable and normalized, and not equivalent to other forms of male-to-male violence; and was not linked to women’s status more broadly in terms of citizenship or human rights. Global norms, as described by two recent United Nations (UN) Secretary-Generals in the quotation above, are attempting to shift the script so that gender-based violence is preventable, that states must address impunity for perpetrators, and that living free from violence and the constant threat of violence is a human right for women and girls. Despite these global normative commitments, violence against women and girls (VAWG) in myriad forms is prevalent in every country and culture. The UN defines VAWG as “any act of genderbased violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual, or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.” Estimates published by the World Health Organization indicate that globally, about ۱ in ۳ of women worldwide have been subjected to either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or nonpartner sexual violence in their lifetimes.