CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2018
| Author | Dwivedy, Santwana |
|---|---|
| Title | India's conformity with International Human Rights Standards to combat Rape |
| Summary | The increase in the incidents of rape and other forms of gender-based violence across the world has placed this issue as one of the top concerns in the international agenda. However at the domestic level, especially in a country like India, the state response to combat rape is highly inadequate. Although previous research has been carried out in order to address this issue, there still exist several gaps in this research. Firstly, such research is restricted to finding the solutions to combat rape within the realm of domestic criminal law which is quite narrow and not victim-centric as it does not remedy the problem of structural gender inequality which causes rape. Secondly, existing research focus in the criminal justice system in India emphasizes on criminalization of offences without looking at other critical elements such as lack of access to justice, ineffective investigation by the enforcement machinery and gender stereotypes in relation to rape which equally contribute to the problem of rape. Thirdly, the sparse research that is available in the area of a rights-based approach to rape focuses more on women’s rights and their violations. In furtherance of such violations, there is hardly any research on follow-up measures relating to the corresponding duty of the state to remedy such violations. At the international level, human rights bodies widely accept that rape is a form of gender discrimination. In furtherance of this, these bodies have developed the due diligence standard for fixing responsibility on states to prevent, protect and punish in cases of rape. Recognizing the advantages of addressing the problem of rape from a human rights approach, this thesis highlights the exact nature and scope of these standards of state responsibility. The objective of this thesis is to use these standards as a yardstick to highlight the extent of state action in India in relation to criminalization, investigation and adjudication of cases of rape. The thesis undertakes this comparative exercise by using the standards that are laid down by the United Nations Human Rights Committee, the Committee overviewing the implementation of Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the European Court of Human Rights. In doing so, it will be shown that although the criminal laws relating to rape in India conform to these standards to some extent (not fully as there are inconsistencies with respect to state’s treatment of marital rape), the execution of these laws at the investigation stage and the interpretation of these laws at the trial stage are highly ineffective and inconsistent with international standards. Hence, this thesis uses these standards as an instrument to remedy these inadequacies by fixing a duty on the state and providing definitive guidelines to combat rape at different stages of the Indian criminal justice system. |
| Supervisor | Möschel, Mathias |
| Department | Legal Studies LLM |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2018/dwivedy_santwana.pdf |
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