ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the strategy of enacting, at the domestic level, a new crime of private torture in order to disrupt and challenge the banalisation of men’s violence against women. It reviews the feminist literature that argues for and against the use of the international prohibition against torture, traditionally aimed at state officials, to denounce men’s violence in the private sphere, as well as the example of Queensland, a state that criminalised private torture in 1997. The chapter then turns to a detailed examination of why a similar bill was thwarted in the legislative process in Canada in 2016, concluding that the deep resistance to such a reform is suggestive of its transformative potential.
