Title: Violence Against Women: An Inquiry into Feminist Critiques and the Epistemological Value of International Law
PhD Supervisor: Neus Torbisco Casals
Expected completion date: 2027.
This research aims to clarify the normative basis of international provisions on violence against women and to examine law’s function in global society in relation to gender equality. This will require a conceptual analysis of gender-based violence in all its forms, ranging from discriminatory acts to heinous crimes. Ideally, this work will also serve to assess the existence of a coherent legal regime on violence against women only, and whether this can bridge the absence, in feminist legal theories, of an overarching framework for addressing issues of gender in law. As such, this research will highly rely on the connections between criminal law, human rights law, and the gender dimension of equality. It seeks to bring feminisms in communication with sociological theories of law and social justice.
Alessia is a PhD candidate in International Law at the Geneva Graduate Institute, where she also obtained her master’s degree in International Law. She graduated cum laude in Political Sciences and International Relations from the University of Florence, Italy. She was a project and research assistant at the Global Health Centre, where she worked on the Geneva Global Health Platform and the Governing Pandemics Initiative, seeking to promote discussion and collaborations in order to improve health policies at the global level. Previously, she interned at the UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and at Data Life Lab, a research centre of the University of Florence.
Research Assistant, Global Health Centre