Conceptualising domestic abuse in human rights law

The chapter will begin by setting out the human rights framework for domestic abuse. Although such abuse is not expressly mentioned in any of the UN human rights treaties, in its General Recommendation 19 of 1992 the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW Committee) interpreted the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) to encompass domestic abuse. The chapter will then proceed to discuss understandings of domestic abuse within the Council of Europe system. Since 2009, the European Court of Human Rights has built up a considerable body of jurisprudence on domestic abuse, however the way in which such abuse has been conceptualised by the Court has evolved during this time, so that the use of Article 3 by the Court in such cases is commonplace and the debate has become whether domestic abuse should be expressly conceptualised as torture.