laws, rules and principles of the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute provides a
glimpse on the potential or limitation of successfully using these instruments.
The concluding section of the manual (Section 7) discusses the specifics of the ‘how to’ and
the ‘why’ of the legal strategies that emerge from the previous sections. It provides a nonexhaustive list of the documentation that may be required for raising the issue of sexual
violence at different forums of justice and addresses the question of strategic advantage of
using one legal option over another. The advocacy needs of women and victims for whom
none of the legal options are available or accessible is also raised with suggestions on ‘how
to’ use international human rights standards for advocacy purposes domestically. The
section pulls and links together all the previous sections in a manner that provides women
information and knowledge that is required to explore possibilities of justice at all levels –
domestic, regional and international. The victims/survivors and the rights groups working
on their behalf in Africa and elsewhere, are already using some of the legal strategies
discussed in this Manual to pursue justice for sexual violence. The section provides a
comprehensive listing of all possible legal options and an analysis of their strategic
advantage.
1.7
Manual+
While the information in the document is and is meant to be a manual, the extensive listing
and gender-analysis of decisions and case law may indicate otherwise. A clarification
therefore is in order that the case law of different international human rights treaty
bodies, courts and tribunals are used as an analytical tool to guide victims and survivors,
human rights and women’s rights lawyers to fully explore the potential of justice through
the use of these mechanisms. Some of the cases are not directly about sexual violence but
are related in some form to litigating sexual violence. For example, decisions that hold
States accountable for a failure to exercise due diligence to prevent torture or domestic
violence can be similarly used to argue State failure to prevent sexual violence. The
judgments that affirm sexual violence as torture provide arguments of how torture
provisions may be used to litigate sexual violence nationally. And, decisions on
discrimination are discussed to show that sexual violence is a form of discrimination against
women. The analysis thus is used to serve the objectives of the Manual on the best ways of
‘how to’ go about litigating sexual violence.
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INTRODUCTION | REDRESS