“Human Rights Protection, Democratic Deliberation”
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the work in the argument about how special protections could serve,
and indeed had served, in a number of contexts to maintain
institutions of patriarchy, and the idea doing the work in the
counter-factual scenario, is to equate the concept of police
enforcement with gross misconduct, widespread corruption, and
structural failure that are typically found in the worst practices of
policing. But nothing has been said about the best practices. And
here, I gather, is the direction toward which the remedy for the
weaknesses and the limitations discussed thus far should aim, i.e., in
the direction of preventing VAW with the finest innovations, the
most exemplary cases of police
enforcement
and the law. As will
soon become clear, the kind of policing strategies and legal
measures being commended here need not be specific to any
country or society. In fact, they are generic. Should they be put into
effect, namely, become enforceable, they must be open to (further)
innovations by, notably, the police. Now, needless to say, those
innovations ought to be consonant with the country’s constitutional
structure and legal system.
That said, I now discuss cases from France, England and
Wales, the United States, Scotland, and the United Kingdom. Then,
further below, I shall propose what ought to be a preliminary
account, an emergent approach toward prevention of VAW that
ought to be standardized by and shared with police forces
everywhere as a concrete step to enforce women’s rights as human
rights. First of all, preemption has to be a component, if not the
concept, of prevention. In this regard, the measures put into effect
by the government in France and the governments in England and
Wales are especially significant: potential victims have recourse to
early police intervention and the information necessary to escape an
abusive situation
before
the phenomenon of VAW occurs. In so
doing, these laws and practices have given teeth to preemption.
The 2010 French law has made “psychological violence,”
