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The book explores the relationship between violence against women on one hand, and the rights to health and reproductive health on the other. It argues that violation of the right to health is a consequence of violence, and that (state) health policies might be a cause of – or create the conditions for – violence against women. It significantly contributes to feminist and international human rights legal scholarship by conceptualising a new ground-breaking idea, violence against women’s health (VAWH), using the Hippocratic paradigm as the backbone of the analysis. The two dimensions of violence at the core of the book – the horizontal, ‘interpersonal’ dimension and the vertical ‘state policies’ dimension – are investigated through around 70 decisions of domestic, regional and international judicial or quasi-judicial bodies (the anamnesis). The concept of VAWH, drawn from the anamnesis, enriches the traditional concept of violence against women with a human rights-based approach to autonomy and a reflection on the pervasiveness of patterns of discrimination (diagnosis). VAWH as theorised in the book allows the reconceptualisation of states’ obligations in an innovative way, by identifying for both dimensions obligations of result, due diligence obligations, and obligations to progressively take steps (treatment). The book eventually asks whether it is not international law itself that is the ultimate cause of VAWH (prognosis).
The anamnesis, which in medical terms mainly consists in case history, provides a legal analysis of around 70 decisions taken by domestic and regional human rights courts, and UN treaty bodies, relevant for the two dimensions at the core of the book, the horizontal, ‘interpersonal’ dimension and the vertical, ‘state policies’ dimension. The first dimension includes cases on domestic violence, rape in peacetime and female genital mutilation. The second dimension explores cases on abortion, involuntary sterilisation, maternal health and emergency contraception. The chapter examines the decisions following three axes/questions: Who are the applicants? In which ways was women’s health relevant in the decision? What reparations, if any, were granted? The book does not aim to elaborate a database of jurisprudence but to reflect on legal issues arising from selected decisions to elaborate the concept of violence against women’s health in chapter 2.