2 - A Master Frame of Rights

Summary

This chapter shows how involuntary sterilisation and castration have become problematised in international law. The chapter discusses the rise of international law and human rights in the post-war context. Despite being regarded as international crimes on meeting certain criteria since the Nuremberg trials, the interventions are rarely prosecuted in practice. Efforts to mainstream involuntary sterilisation as human rights violations have been more successful. This development began in the 1990s and has since gone from soft law to binding legal obligations. The chapter shows that uncertainty prevails regarding the legal and remedial conceptualisation of involuntary sterilisation and castration in international human rights law due to inconsistent and incidental treatment of such cases. Ultimately, the argument is made that international law provides a socio-legal master frame for national legal claims. In the case of involuntary sterilisation and castration, however, this master frame is not sharply defined, effectively impeding investigation and problematisation of the practices in national contexts.