Gender-based violence against women as a matter of discrimination: Focusing on the analysis of the state’s positive obligation doctrine as applied in the European Court of Human Rights’ judgment “Volodina v. Russia(No. 2)”

Women and girls who are victims of violence need active protection from the state because they are mostly socially vulnerable and cannot escape the danger of violence on their own. Especially with the development of the Internet, violence against women is no longer limited to the analog world, and perpetrators are using the Internet in their acts of violence in the digital world as well. Cyberviolence manifests itself in a variety of ways, from threatening messages and cyber-stalking to consensual/ unconsensual uploading of intimate images. This analysis of the Volodina v. Russia judgment (no. 2) addresses how the European Court of Human Rights (“the Court”) examines and justifies interference with the scope of protection based on the legal concept of the State’s positive obligations in dealing with the issue of violence against women in the digital dimension. The Court focuses on Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (Right to respect for private life) to explain the positive obligation of the state. It sets out the legal instruments of the state’s positive obligations in contrast to its negative obligations, and explores the extent to which they have been applied in specific cases. It is also necessary to critique why the European Court of Human Rights does not examine violations of the prohibition of discrimination under Article 14 (principle of non-discrimination) of the European Convention on Human Rights when determining the scope of protection in this case. CEDAW has already considered gender-based violence against women as an important human rights issue from the very beginning, stipulating that it concerns women precisely because it often affects them disproportionately and is therefore discrimination against women. For this reason, the European Court of Human Rights should have addressed in the judgment at least whether, in addition to a violation of Article 8 of the Convention, the Russian authorities had also violated Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights.