Browsing by Subject "Women’s rights"

This thesis focuses on examining the relation between the international human rights obligations of Finland and criminalisation for the protection of human rights interests, especially whether one may derive a duty to criminalise in a certain way from such international legal instruments. Sexual violence against women has been chosen as a pressing human rights issue to be examined, and the crime of rape has been used as a way of exemplifying the thesis focus. Thus, the international regulations dealing with the relevant human rights have been systematised and interpreted, while continuously being analysed in relation to the unique characteristics surrounding the crime of rape. The purpose of this research is to present the obligations of Finland to fully implement and apply international human rights norms within the selected area of sexual crime. For this purpose, Finland’s efforts to implement the relevant legal instruments have been subject to analysis. Ultimately, this thesis aims to present alternative measures to legislation with which the human rights obligations may be fulfilled, due to legislative means often lacking behind the fast-moving social change and pleads for modernisation. Thus, this thesis examines a few key measures within the criminal justice system that may be utilised, and makes conclusions on the efficacy of these measures in relation to legislative means. The aim is not to present any optimal solution, but to examine how different situations of decision-making and the norms related thereto affect the protection of human rights. As a conclusion, it is presented that legislative means, namely criminalisation, may be one of the best options available for improving the protection of human rights on a national level. However, there exists means with which the actors within the criminal justice system may further change from within, which is often necessary for a state to modernise its ways and customs. Evidently, the currently proposed amendment to the Finnish criminalisation of rape could solve many issues presented in this thesis. Nevertheless, several human rights violations still exist in Finland which do not yet have legislative amendments under way, and that may thus benefit from the alternative means presented in this thesis.