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where the state has collapsed, and stateless persons who are
victimized, this approach becomes inapplicable. By entirely
neglecting those who find themselves in these types of situations,
where VAW and gender-based crimes have been reported,
19
a
state-centric account like Donnelly’s provides no help at all.
Donnelly might retort that most people do not live outside of
the state, nor in environments where the state has for all practical
purposes disintegrated. No doubt the injustices of stateless persons
and refugees require redress; however, their situations do not point
to the failings of state-based approach. People who find themselves
in a collapsed state or in a stateless environment ought to be given
protections.
20
That functioning states have often turned a blind eye
to these disasters and lent a tin ear to the desperate voices of
stateless persons is more symptomatic of the selfish behavior of
states than any (supposed) break-down in the system of
international human rights theory and practices.
Yet even within the framework of a functioning state, where
Donnelly accepts variations in the implementation of state
protections, victims of VAW can fall through the cracks
—
in three
ways. First, variations in implementation have created loopholes.
Euphemistically
called
“understandings,”
“clarifications,”
“explanations,” and “interpretative statements”
that serve to make
international human rights principles consistent with local laws, e.g.,
contexts
and customs, these reservations have in effect become
19
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon commented that VAW in conflict zones had
“reached unspeakable and pandemic proportions in some societies” (Worsnip,
2008). T
he UN reported “27,000 sexual assaults” in the South Kivu Province of
Eastern Congo in 2006 (Gettleman, 2007);
“U.N. aided 38,000 victims of Syrian
gender-based violence in 2013” (Miles, 2014). Concerning sexual and other
abuse of female refugees, such as those making their ways into Europe, there are
“no reliable statistics” (Bennhold, 2016).
20
“The United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons”
(United Nations, 1954). To my knowledge, none of Donnelly’s writing discusses
the phenomenon of stateless persons, for example, the stateless Rohingya in
Burma.
