Human rights and gender violence
Subtitle: translating international law into local justice
By: Sally Engle Merry.
Series: Chicago series in law and society
Publisher: University of Chicago Press; University Of Chicago Press
Published: 2006
Place of publication: Chicago
Language: eng
Number of pages: 269
Subjects: Women -- Violence against; Women -- Legal status, laws, etc; Human rights; Culture and law; Culture conflict
Description: Human rights law and the legal protection of women from violence are still fairly new concepts. As a result, substantial discrepancies exist between what is decided in the halls of the United Nations and what women experience on a daily basis in their communities. Human Rights and Gender Violence is an ambitious study that investigates the tensions between global law and local justice. As an observer of UN diplomatic negotiations as well as the workings of grassroots feminist organizations in several countries, Sally Engle Merry offers an insider's perspective on how human rights law holds authorities accountable for the protection of citizens even while reinforcing and expanding state power. Providing legal and anthropological perspectives, Merry contends that human rights law must be framed in local terms to be accepted and effective in altering existing social hierarchies. Gender violence in particular, she argues, is rooted in deep cultural and religious beliefs, so change is often vehemently resisted by the communities perpetrating the acts of aggression. A much-needed exploration of how local cultures appropriate and enact international human rights law, this book will be of enormous value to students of gender studies and anthropology alike.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: Culture and transnationalism; title: Creating human rights; title: Gender violence and the CEDAW process; title: Disjunctures between global law and local justice; title: Legal transplants and cultural translation : making human rights in the vernacular; title: Localizing human rights and rights consciousness; title: Conclusions.