ICON S Conference 17 – 19 June 2016 Humboldt University Berlin

17 WOMEN IN THE LAW
Panel formed with individual proposals.
Participants Simon Hedlin
Elena Ervas and Tania Pagotto
Shazia Choudhry
Neus Torbisco-Casals
Name of Chair Simon Hedlin
Room UL6 2103
Simon Hedlin: The Relationship between Prostitution
Laws and Sex Trafficking: Theory and
Evidence on Scale, Substitution, and Replacement
Effects
This study investigates the relationship between
prostitution laws and the prevalence of sex trafficking
across European countries. Two main contributions are
reported. First, it creates a simple ordinal measure of
prostitution laws. The measure is called the Prostitution
Law Index and is based on a very rudimentary framework
that analyzes forms of scale, substitution, and replacement
effects in the market for prostitution. The index
ranks prostitution laws across countries on a four-point
scale (from 1 to 4) based on expected effectiveness (from
least to most effective) in terms of reducing the prevalence
of sex trafficking. Second, the study uses a new
dataset provided by the European Union to study the
relationship between Prostitution Law Index scores and
prevalence of sex trafficking. Cross-country analyses
suggest that there generally appears to be a negative
relationship between a country’s Prostitution Law Index
score and the prevalence of trafficking, in line with theory.
Elena Ervas and Tania Pagotto: The Muslim veil:
should we tolerate ignore or ban this religious
garment?
The room the society should leave to religious manifestations
is a constant endurance test for European
States. It raises the peak when dealing with the wearing
of religious garments. In Italy the very concise but
neat legal framework has been essential to solve controversies:
Muslim women enjoy the right to wear the
veil in public unless their face is not identifiable. While
other European States shape the religious symbols’
regulation providing specific grounds for limitation (i.e.
public security, or health), the general French ban for
Muslim women is problematic. To this extent, the recent
developments of the ECtHR jurisprudence seem
to accept broader justifications, such as the argument
of “living together” or the principle of laicité. Our aim
is to investigate the approach of the ECHR towards
the Muslim veil, critically analyze which arguments the
court relies upon and verify whether it has come closer
to a new conception of neutrality or laicité.
Shazia Choudhry: Towards a Substantive/Transformative
Conceptualisation of Violence against
Women – A Critical Frame Analysis of Council
of Europe Discourse
Much academic attention has been devoted to
violence against women (VAW) in Europe and research
has focused on the mounting policy reform initiatives
and capacity building strategies in the EU. Council
of Europe initiatives in this area have, surprisingly,
by contrast, remained under-researched. This paper
seeks to fill the gap in the literature by engaging
in an examination and critique of the ways in which
the Council of Europe has incorporated and framed
VAW within various legal and policy initiatives. It will
employ a methodology of critical frame analysis as
theorized by the literature on social movements, and
anti-essentialist critiques within feminist literature to
ask: how VAW is problematized, what solutions are
offered, where they are located, to what extent they
are gendered, and who has a voice in these policy
and legal texts.
Neus Torbisco-Casals: Women and Minorities
Underrepresentation in the Judiciary:
An Argument for Diversity on the Bench
The underrepresentation of women and ethnic minorities
in judicial office across Western democracies
and in international courts is increasingly depicted
as a failure. Some countries have started to address
this challenge and to devise measures to promote
diversity in the bench. The debate is recognizably
part of a broader discussion over the participation
of women and minorities into mainstream political
bodies and public organizations. Critics argue that
a male dominated judiciary undermines the democratic
legitimacy of their decisions, and that, in itself,
expresses the denial of equal opportunities to underrepresented
groups. But there is more than equality
based reasons at the core of judicial diversity arguments,
often the assumption is that the underrepresentation
of women and minorities also weakens
the quality of judging. This suggestion points to an
under explored topic, which the paper addresses by
proposing a trust-based argument that complements
equality-based reasons.
Concurring panels 45