Human Rights, Domestic Violence and the Family Law System

Please join us for pre-event canapes and refreshments from 5pm.

Janet Zignon has argued that the constant utilisation of human rights language results in a maintenance of the ‘truth’ of the global morality of human rights. In doing so, she notes the necessity of the state in constantly declaring the centrality of human rights which in turn provides human rights with actual and practical effect in the world. This analysis is particularly illuminating when applied to the relative success of the women’s human rights movement, in challenging the ‘public/private divide.’

However, the ‘truth’ of human rights within the nexus of family law, gender and domestic abuse has yet to materialise. The response of family justice systems towards victims of domestic abuse across the world epitomises a lack of understanding of the dynamics of domestic abuse and the utilisation of family law proceedings by perpetrators to continue abuse. Most stark is the lack of reference to human rights law. The private arena of family law has remained largely untroubled by advances in understanding concerning domestic abuse and the applicability of due diligence standards and positive obligations in this regard. This lecture will provide a detailed overview of these issues and an analysis of the relevance of international human rights law.

Shazia Choudhry is Professor of Law and the Jeffrey Hackney Tutorial Fellow in Law at Wadham College, Oxford. She is also an Associate Academic Fellow and Academic Bencher of the Inner Temple. Her research interests lie in the fields of European and UK human rights law and the interface of those fields with criminal law, family law and human rights law. Particular areas of interest include the impact of the HRA and the European Convention on Human Rights on the law and policy with regard to violence against women.

In addition to her academic publications in these areas, Shazia also engages in advisory work at the domestic and international level. This has included her appointment as Specialist Adviser to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights Inquiry into Violence against Women (2014-15), Specialist Adviser to the Joint Committee on the Draft Domestic Abuse Bill (2019 and Specialist Adviser to the Women and Equalities Committee (2022)), as an expert evaluator for the European Commission, as an expert for the Council of Europe (including participating in the GREVIO monitoring mission to Serbia) and as an expert consultant for the UN and the UNFPA. Shazia was put forward, in 2024, as the UK Government's first ever nomination for the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

Host or Publisher Melbourne Law School