ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an empirical examination of the consequences of the normative gap in international law addressing violence against women and girls. It also provides some background on the concept of normative gaps in international law, addresses why the normative gap relating to gender violence is of particular concern. The chapter argues that the consequences of normative gaps in domestic laws addressing women and girls provide a reasonable proxy for the international gap, and provide some examples of normative gaps in domestic laws. The idea of a normative gap is a simple one. It is a condition that exists when some widely-accepted moral principle has insufficiently binding rules to guide and/or impel actors’ behaviour in line with that principle. One situation that could produce a normative gap in international human rights law would be states having difficulty achieving consensus on what new rules would be best for universal attainment of an agreed-upon principle.
