This volume argues that international human rights law has made a positive contribution to the realization of human rights in much of the world. Although governments sometimes ratify human rights treaties, gambling that they will experience little pressure to comply with them, this is not typically the case. Focusing on rights stakeholders rather than the United Nations or state pressure, Beth Simmons demonstrates through a combination of statistical analyses and case studies that the ratification of treaties leads to better rights practices on average. Simmons argues that international human rights law should get more practical and rhetorical support from the international community as a supplement to broader efforts to address conflict, development, and democratization.

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Mobilizing for Human Rights: International Law in Domestic Politics

In this essay we sketch core elements of feminist thought and demonstrate their relevance for criminology. After reviewing the early feminist critiques of the discipline and the empirical emphases of the 1970s and early 1980s, we appraise current issues and debates in three areas: building theories of gender and crime, controlling men's violence toward women, and gender equality in the criminal justice system. We invite our colleagues to reflect on the androcentrism of the discipline and to appreciate the promise of feminist inquiry for rethinking problems of crime and justice.

Feminism and criminology

The Culture and Context of Male Violence Against Women Understanding the Perpetrator and the Victim - Who Abuses and Who is Abused? The Prevalence of Intimate Violence - Physical and Psychological Outcomes of Partner Violence Intimate Violence - Treatment Issues and Policy Initiatives Sexual Harasasment - the Last Great Open Secret Responses to Sexual Harasssment Intervention, Prevention and Treatment Issues for Sexual Harassment Uniting all Women - the Fear of Rape The Physical and Psychological Aftermath of Rape Intervention and Treatment for Rape Survivors Common Themes and a Call for Action.

No Safe Haven: Male Violence Against Women at Home, at Work, and in the Community

This paper reviews research evidence regarding the personal and social development of children with gay and lesbian parents. Beginning with estimates of the numbers of such children, sociocultural, theoretical, and legal reasons for attention to their development are then outlined. In this context, research studies on sexual identity, personal development, and social relationships among these children are then reviewed. These studies include assessment of possible differences between children with gay or lesbian versus heterosexual parents as well as research on sources of diversity among children of gay and lesbian parents. Research on these topics is relatively new, and many important questions have yet to be addressed. To date, however, there is no evidence that the development of children with lesbian or gay parents is compromised in any significant respect relative to that among children of heterosexual parents in otherwise comparable circumstances. Having begun to respond to heterosexist and homophobic questions posed by psychological theory, judicial opinion, and popular prejudice, child development researchers are now in a position also to explore a broader range of issues raised by the emergence of different kinds of gay and lesbian families.

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Children of lesbian and gay parents.

1. The prison and the gallows: the construction of the carceral state in America 2. Law, order, and alternative explanations 3. Unlocking the past: the nationalization and politicization of law and order 4. The carceral state and the welfare state: the comparative politics of victims 5. Not the usual suspects: feminists, women's groups, and the anti-rape movement 6. The battered women's movement and the development of penal policy 7. From rights to revolution: prison activism and penal policy 8. Capital punishment, the courts, and the early origins of the carceral state, 1920s-60s 9. The power to punish: the political development of capital punishment, 1972 to today 10. Conclusion: whither the carceral state.

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The Prison and the Gallows: The Politics of Mass Incarceration in America

As recently as the 1960s the harm of domestic violence was not legally recognized. This book examines how path-breaking feminist activists and lawyers have brought the severity of domestic violence to public attention since then and have led the US Congress, the Supreme Court, and the United Nations to address the problem.

Battered Women and Feminist Lawmaking

The idea that legal rights have some intrinsic value is widespread in our culture. A rights claim can make a statement of entitlement that is universal and categorical. Critical legal studies (CLS) scholars question whether rights claims and rights discourse can facilitate social reconstruction. The CLS critique has several interrelated themes which flow from a more general critique of liberalism. CLS scholars argue that liberalism is premised on dichotomies, such as individual and community or self and other, that divide the world into two mutually exclusive spheres. CLS scholars criticize the use of rights claims by social movement groups on related grounds. Feminist theory emphasizes the value of direct and personal experience as the place that theory should begin, as embodied in the phrase "the personal is political". Looking at the gains and losses together, the chapter concludes that the struggles around legal rights have moved the women's movement forward and reinforced a sense of collective experience for the movement.

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The Dialectic of Rights and Politics: Perspectives from the Women’s Movement [1986]

This chapter explores the ways in which concepts of privacy permit, encourage, and reinforce violence against women, focusing on the complex interrelationship between notions of "public" and "private" in our social understandings of woman-abuse. It begins with a brief overview of the meanings of "public" and "private" in American family life. The chapter also explores current legal reform efforts on behalf of battered women and examines the persistence of denial of battering as a "public" issue. It addresses shifting parameters of "public" and "private" in reform efforts on woman-abuse. The chapter focuses on to Griswold and argues for the development of affirmative conceptions of privacy linked to autonomy to enhance battered women's empowerment. It is important to remember that the litigation in Griswold emerged from a struggle for women's rights. The rationale of privacy legitimates and supports violence against women; woman-abuse reveals the violence of privacy.

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The Violence of Privacy

Perspectives on Women’s Subordination and the Role of Law

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Elizabeth M. Schneider

Papers

Battered Women and Feminist Lawmaking

The Dialectic of Rights and Politics: Perspectives from the Women’s Movement [1986]

The Violence of Privacy

Perspectives on Women’s Subordination and the Role of Law

Feminism and the False Dichotomy of Victimization and Agency