Conceptualizing Intimate Violence and Gender Equality: A Comparative Approach
Part I discusses the treatment of domestic violence as a human rights issue under international law, focusing on the shift in the conceptualization of violence against women from a private matter to a human rights issue. By framing gender-based violence as a means to perpetuate the social, economic, and political inequality of women, the international community has imposed positive obligations upon the state to not only punish but to prevent gender-based violence and to eliminate its root causes. In Parts II and III, I contrast the approaches of the highest courts of the United States and South Africa. Part II analyzes the conceptualization of domestic violence as a private crime by the U.S. Supreme Court and its refusal to constitutionalize a right to be free of genderbased violence. By framing gender-based violence within the framework of formal equality, the Supreme Court erases the relationship between intimate violence and women’s full and equal enjoyment of their fundamental constitutional rights and benefits. The refusal of the Supreme Court to conceptualize intimate violence as an issue of equality threatens the potential of criminal justice reforms to obligate the state to eradicate gender-based violence. The criminalization of intimate violence sends a strong normative message that such conduct violates important social norms and will not be tolerated by the state. Focusing on criminal justice reforms that punish perpetrators, however, can reinforce the traditional notion that intimate violence is the result of individual deviance rather than the systematic subordination of women in society. Part III analyzes the approach of the South African Constitutional Court, which has explicitly conceptualized intimate violence as a means of gender subordination that denies women equality, self-determination, and access to fundamental rights and liberties. The Court has held that the South African Constitution imposes affirmative obligations on the state to prevent and rectify intimate violence. In construing violence against women as a violation of the right to equality, the Court repeatedly has emphasized that the Constitution guarantees substantive rather than formal equality. The Court also has recognized the inter-relatedness of the rights guaranteed by the Constitution, holding that rights to equality, liberty, and dignity are meaningless in the absence of the fulfillment of basic socioeconomic rights. The Court’s jurisprudence, therefore, has tremendous potential to transform both the legal and the socioeconomic subordination of women that reflect and perpetuate violence against women. CONCEPTUALIZING INTIMATE VIOLENCE AND GENDER EQUALITY: A COMPARATIVE APPROACH
AVRUPA İNSAN HAKLARI SÖZLEŞMESİ SİSTEMİNDE KADINA KARŞI AİLE İÇİ ŞİDDET OLGUSU VE BUNUNLA MÜCADELE ARAÇLARI =VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN THE FAMILY WITHIN THE EUROPEAN CONVENTION ON HUMAN RIGHTS SYSTEM AND THE TOOLS TO COMBAT THAT
Kadina karsi aile ici siddet dunya capinda bir olgudur. Geleneksel olarak, bir insan haklari meselesi olarak kabul edilmeyen kadina karsi aile ici siddet, insan haklari aktivistlerinin, kadin hareketlerinin ve bu alanda calisan akademisyenlerin gayretli cabalari sonucunda BM gundemine girmistir. KKAOKK’nin 19 numarali Genel Tavsiyesi ile kadina karsi siddet ilk kez toplumsal cinsiyet temelinde bir ayrimcilik bicimi olarak kabul edilmis ve kadina karsi siddet hususunu acikca duzenleyen KKAOKS sistemine entegre edilmistir. Uluslar arasi insan haklari hukukunda toplumsal cinsiyet temelinde bir ayrimcilik bicimi olarak kabul edilen kadina karsi siddet, ister ozel ister kamusal alanda gerceklessin devletin bununla mucadele etme yukumlulugu vardir . Due dilgence standartlar olarak adlandirilan bu yukumlulukler uyarinca devlet sadece siddet magdurunu koruma, faili cezalandirma yukumlulugu altinda olmayip siddetin koklerini ve nedenlerini de ortadan kaldirma yukumlulugu altindadir. Kadina karsi aile ici siddet, AIHM kararlarinda uluslar arasi insan haklari hukuku arka plani cercevesinde incelendiginde, AIHM’in de bu siddet bicimi AIHS ile bagdasmaz buldugu ve Taraf  Devletlerin bu hususta pozitif yukumlulukleri oldugunu kabul ettigi gorulmektedir. Kadina karsi aile ici siddetle mucadelede kadinin uc kusak insan haklari da dikkate alinarak butuncul bir yaklasim benimsemelidir. Anahtar Kelimeler : AIHS, ayrimcilik, butuncul yaklasim, due diligence, kadina karsi aile ici siddet VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN THE FAMILY WITHIN THE  EUROPEAN CONVENTION ON HUMAN RIGHTS SYSTEM AND  THE TOOLS TO COMBAT THAT Abstract Domestic violence against women is a worlwide phenomenon. Traditonaly, domestic violence was recognised as a private matter rather than as a human rights issue. Through the efforts of the human rights activists, women’s movement and scholars, domestic violence was put on the Un agenda. General Reccomendation No. 19 of the CEDAW has recognised domestic violence as a gender-based discrimination fort he first time and entegrated it in the CEDAW system. Within the international human rights law, the State Parties are under the obligation to combat domestic violence against women, which is recognised as a gender-based discrimination, notwithstanding it occurs in private or public sphere. According to the due diligence standarts, States are obliged to protect the victims of the domectic violence and to prosecute the perpetrators but also to eradicate the roots and causes of the domectic violence as well. In the judgments of the ECtHR, domestic violence has been found as a violation of the ECHR and it has been recognised that the State Parties are under the positive obligations in this issue. Therefore, an integrated approach should be adopted in order to emiminate domestic violence against women. Keywords : discriminatoin, domestic violence against women, due diligence, echr, integrated aproach.
Testing the Core Empirical Implications of Gottfredson and Hirschi's General Theory of Crime
In A General Theory of Crime, Gottfredson and Hirschi propose that low self-control, in interaction with criminal opportunity, is the major cause of crime. The research reported in this article attempts to test this argument while closely following the nominal definitions presented by Gottfredson and Hirschi. A factor analysis of items designed to measure low self-control is consistent with their contention that the trait is unidimensional. Further, the proposed interaction effect is found for self-reported acts of both fraud and force (their definition of crime). Inconsistent with the theory are (a) the finding that criminal opportunity has a significant main effect, beyond its interaction with low self-control, on self-reported crime and (b) the substantial proportion of variance in crime left unexplained by the theoretical variables. Suggestions are offered for modifying and expanding the theory.