Law and Race Speaker series: 'Non-Consensual Sterilisation at the European Court of Human Rights: Vulnerability, Human Dignity, and Confronting Eugenics in Reproductive Healthcare'

Speaker: Helen Jennings

Helen Jennings studied law at the University of Cambridge, and throughout her degree played an active role in the struggle for reproductive justice across the island of Ireland. She worked with the London-Irish Abortion Rights Campaign as an activist and legal researcher and convened an academic conference in the Cambridge Law Faculty on “The Development of Abortion Rights in a Changing Europe”. After graduating university, Helen worked for UN Women as a legal researcher on various topics related to Women, Peace and Security. Helen graduated with an LLM (Master of Laws) from New York University in 2021 as a Fulbright Scholar. She has since published papers on non-consensual sterilisation in U.S. immigration detention and on UN fact-finding as a mechanism to secure justice for victims of rape as a weapon of war. Helen completed pupillage at 25 Bedford Row Chambers in London as a criminal defence barrister before taking up a role at the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, as Judicial Assistant to Lord Lloyd-Jones. She continues to write academically on issues related to international human rights and reproductive justice.

Abstract: The European Court of Human Rights has ruled upon several cases concerning non-consensual sterilisation over the past fifteen years. Three of these decisions (VC v Slovakia (2011), NB v Slovakia (2012) and IG and Oths v Slovakia (2012)) concerned Roma women who were sterilised during Caesarean section procedures. In each of these cases, the Court found that the women’s Article 3 rights had been violated. The Court relied upon the fact that the women were all members of a “vulnerable population group”, and that Roma populations were at increased risk of forced sterilisation. The Court did not, however, examine in depth the reason for this increased risk: a history of eugenics against Roma women in Eastern Europe which has been termed an “attempted genocide” by survivors.

In September 2022, the Court considered for the first time a case where a woman who was not a member of the Roma community had been sterilised without her consent. In YP v Russia (2022), the Court distinguished the “Roma cases” and relied upon the absence of bad faith on the part of the doctors in finding no violation of Article 3. This paper considers the Court’s reasoning in these cases, examining vulnerability and the Court’s treatment of the legacy of eugenics against Roma women. The paper argues for non-consensual sterilisation to be treated as a violation of the victim’s human dignity.

(The talk will be followed by a drinks reception)

For further information, please contact the convenors, Dr Kirsty Hughes (kh391@cam.ac.uk) and Vandita Khanna (vk347@cam.ac.uk)