Domestic Violence as a Human Rights Issue:Rumor v. Italy

The article focuses on the recent developments as regards domestic violence within the context of the Council of Europe. Since 2007 the European Court of Human Rights has issued a series of important judgments in cases involving domestic violence. The most recent of these is Rumor v. Italy, in which the Court issued its judgment on 27 May 2014. The article analyses this case in the context of the Court’s previous jurisprudence on domestic violence. In addition, on 1 August 2014 the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence entered into force, and the article will include a number of reflections on the potential held by this Convention. No violation of the European Convention on Human Rights was found in Rumor, however the question of whether Italy would have been in breach of the provisions of the new Convention, to which it is a party, had this Convention been in force at the time of the relevant events, will be examined. Domestic violence affects vast numbers of women in every state around the globe. Although it seems clear that the practice of domestic violence constitutes a breach of internationally recognised rights such as the right to be free from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment; the right to private and family life; and, in some circumstances, the right to life itself; it is only relatively recently that domestic violence has been analysed through the lens of human rights law. There have been important developments at the United Nations level and within the Inter-American and African regional systems as regards the recognition of domestic violence as a human rights issue, and the paper will 1 Although domestic violence against male victims is certainly an important issue, the international human rights bodies have to date largely approached domestic violence as a form of violence against women.