ABSTRACT

This chapter considers how, through the lens of human rights, it may come more clearly into view. It explores definitional connections between victims of crime, of abuse of power and of human rights violations. The chapter focuses on the nature of rights and what we see of the state through its agents in criminal justice. The categorization of and boundaries to recognition of victim status are at once narrow and broad. Substantively, the connecting idea within this human rights canon is that victims are persons who have suffered not just ‘harm’ but ‘substantial impairment of their fundamental rights’. It is easy to avoid understanding the state as both goody and baddy in its various relationships to victims and witnesses. The case study is a rudimentary analysis of various violations of state power and the obligations of the duty-bearing prosecution to Jane.