RP.17.10
Transforming legal understandings of intimate partner violence
June 2019
This project examines the theories of intimate partner violence (IPV) that are typically relied on when women are charged with homicide of their abusive partner and compare them with established theories of IPV, including intimate partner sexual violence.
Using The State of Western Australia v. Liyanage (2016) as a case study, the researchers demonstrate how social entrapment as a conceptual framework for understanding IPV provides the basis for accurately assessing whether a defendant was acting in self-defence.
The project examines the history of the common law to demonstrate why outmoded paradigms of violence and self-defence may persist in homicide trials in this context.
Researchers
Project lead
Associate Professor Stella Tarrant, University of Western Australia
Research expertise
Professor Julia Tolmie, University of Auckland
Practice expertise
Mr George Giudice, George Giudice Law Chambers
Downloads
RESEARCH SUMMARY
Women who kill abusive partners: Understandings of intimate partner violence in the context of self-defence. Key findings and future directions
Download
RESEARCH REPORT
Transforming legal understandings of intimate partner violence
Content note: This research report contains descriptions of physical and sexual violence, and child abuse.
Download see also
PRESENTATION SLIDES
Thinking differently in order to see accurately: Explaining why we are convicting women we might otherwise be burying
Professor Julia Tolmie
Download 
PRESENTATION SLIDES
Why intimate partner violence is difficult to see as grounds for self-defence: Old common law legacies
Associate Professor Stella Tarrant
Download 
Report launch
On 27 June, ANROWS launched the report Transforming legal understandings of intimate partner violence, the related research to policy and practice paper, Women who kill abusive partners: Understandings of intimate partner violence in the context of self-defence-Key findings and future directions, and exhibition Uncertainty II. Attendees were welcomed by Michelle Nelson-Cox and heard from the researchers, Associate Professor Stella Tarrant and Professor Julia Tolmie.
Priority populations
Culturally and Linguistically Diverse women, women who are, or have been, incarcerated (as explicit topic).
Budget
$26,216
Funded by Australian Commonwealth, state and territory governments under ANROWS’s 2017 core grant round.
find out more
Contact ANROWS
PO Box Q389, Queen Victoria Building NSW 1230
Email: enquiries@anrows.org.au