Femicidal Futures: Expanding the Rome Statute By Georgia Delgado-Fitzgerald*
ABSTRACT
This article highlights the state practice of Mexico as a case study, where femicide has a tenacious grip on the state. Mexico’s state practice in response to femicide is analysed to understand the current circumstances and frictions of femicide dualistically on both the state and the international level, addressing the contentions of femicide and its intersections with patriarchal values, organised crime violence and domestic violence. These intersections complicate the criminalisation of femicide when attempting to hold states accountable, given the precarious and harrowing reality of organised crime and state relationships, with power dynamics oppressing both organised crime actors and state actors, who simultaneously contribute and create necropolitical violence. The aim of highlighting Mexico’s high rates of femicide is to reflect on state practice in responding to female subjugation and to demonstrate the urgency of the inclusion of femicide as a novel core crime in the Rome Statute. This paper will assess femicide as a form of genocide, finding it problematic due to the activation of the female identity to the exclusion of trans and queer victims. It will then consider it as a crime against humanity and find it is equally problematic to apply to the endemic nature of femicide as femicide needs to meet the widespread and systematic requirements. Ultimately, the inclusion of femicide into the Rome Statute as a novel core crime will be argued for, and the implementation of this will further criminalise state actors who show inertia in the implementation of international norms that protect women.
*
LL.B. Candidate, International and European Law Program, The Hague University of Applied Sciences.
2020 issue 1 ILSA Law Journal
6
