ABSTRACT
This chapter assesses the achievements of the Latin American feminist law reform campaigns against femicide with reference to the reservations Smart expressed about turning to law for solutions. Laws criminalising 'femicide' and 'feminicide' in Latin America have now removed the conceptual and political difference between both terms. Most of the laws criminalising femicide in Latin America have been passed unanimously with the support of right and left wing parliamentary parties. Some legal academics have expressed concern about the strategy of criminalising femicide. This criticism has been made of other gender-specific offences that criminalise different violent crimes against women more severely than similar crimes committed against men. The criminalisation of femicide has brought attention to the gender-related nature of men's fatal attacks on women. An important component of a feminist perspective has nevertheless gone missing – the political power of pointing to states' gender-biased negligence with regards to these crimes.
