1. See e.g. Wilson, Richard A., “Introduction: Human Rights, Culture and Context” in Wilson, Richard A., Human Rights, Culture and Context: Anthropological Perspectives (London: Pluto Press, 1996)Google Scholar; Ann-Belinda S., Preis, “Human Rights as Cultural Practice: An Anthropological Critique” (1996) 18 Human Rights Quarterly 286Google Scholar; Pollis, Adamantia, “Cultural Relativism Revisited: Through a State Prism” (1996) 18 Human Rights Quarterly 316CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lewis, Hope, “Between Irua and ‘Female Genital Mutilation’: Feminist Human Rights Discourse and the Cultural Divide” (1995) 8 Harvard Human Rights Journal 1Google Scholar; Van Bueren, Geraldine, “The International Protection of Family Members' Rights as the 21st Century Approaches” (1995) 17 Human Rights Quarterly 732CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cook, Rebecca J., “Women's International Human Rights Law: The Way Forward” (1993) 15 Human Rights Quarterly 230CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Renteln, Alison Dundes, International Human Rights: Universalism versus Relativism (London: Sage, 1990)Google Scholar.

2. Silk, James, “Traditional Culture and the Prospects for Human Rights” in An-Na'im, Abdullahi Ahmed & Deng, Francis, eds., Human Rights in Africa: Cross-Cultural Perspectives (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1990) 290 at 316Google Scholar.

3. There is little question that human rights as a model for social justice developed from Western cultural roots and was promoted, in the early post-war period, largely by representatives of the Americas and Europe. Virginia Leary, “The Effect of Western Perspectives on International Human Rights” in An'Naim & Deng, eds., ibid., 15. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights was drafted almost entirely by Westerners or Western-trained representatives from Africa and Asia, and the two Covenants, on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights and on Civil and Political Rights, although passed in 1966, were largely drafted before the period of decolonization and the admission of many African states into the United Nations. Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im, “Problems of Universal Cultural Legitimacy for Human Rights” in An-Na'im & Deng, eds., ibid. 331 at 348–51.

4. See generally An-Na'im & Deng, eds., ibid. Yasuaki Onuma, “In Quest of Intercivilizational Human Rights: ‘Universal vs Relative’ Human Rights Viewed from an Asian Perspective” (Paper presented at the Conference of the Research Committee on the Sociology of Law, Tokyo, Japan, 1995) [unpublished]; Wilson, supra note 1. Donnelly notes that it is essential to regard human rights as having universal validity, even though we recognize that the concept emerged from a particular civilization at a particular historical moment. Donnelly, Jack, “Human Rights and Human Dignity: An Analytical Critique of Non-Western Conceptions of Human Rights” (1982) 76 American Political Science Rev. 303 at 314CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Moreover, he argues that the liberal tradition, rooted in Locke's ideas as presented in Two Treatises of Government published in 1689, began as a critique of aristocratic power and privilege. By the 18th and 19th centuries, however, liberalism, with its protection of the right to property, had instead established the privilege of propertied classes, who only later solidified their power into a new form of privilege and oppression based on property ownership rather than birth. Jack Donnelly, “Human Rights and Western Liberalism” in An-Na'im & Deng, eds., ibid., 31 at 52–53.

5. Fernyhough, Timothy, “Human Rights in Precolonial Africa” in Cohen, Ronald, Hyden, Goran & Nagan, Winston, eds., Human Rights and Governance in Africa (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1993) at 40Google Scholar.

6. An-Na'im, supra note 3; O'Donovan, Katherine, “The Subject of Human Rights: Abstract or Embodied?” (1995) 46 Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly 353Google Scholar; Onuma, supra note 4.

7. Preis, supra note 1 at 298.

8. Wilson, supra note 1 at 16.

9. O'Donovan, supra note 6 at 362.

10. de Sousa Santos, Boaventura, “Law: A Map of Misreading; Toward a Postmodern Conception of Law” (1987) 14 Journal of Law and Society 279CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Merry, Sally Engle, “Legal Pluralism” (1988) 22 Law and Society Rev. 869CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11. Bossey, John, ed., Disputes and Settlements: Law and Human Relations in the West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 193)Google Scholar.

12. Indigenous peoples have contributed to the drafting of a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations. Coulter, Robert T., “Commentary on the UN Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples” (1994) 18:2Cultural Survival Quarterly 37Google Scholar. Human rights are often important to local indigenous movements. See e.g. Trask, Haunani-Kay, From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawai'i (Monroe, ME: Common Courage, 1993)Google Scholar; Sierra, Maria Teresa, “Indian Rights and Customary Law in Mexico: A Study of the Nahuas in the Sierra de Puebla” (1995) 29 Law and Society Rev. 227CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13. See e.g. McCann, Michael, Rights at Work (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994)Google Scholar; Sally Engle Merry, “Legal Pluralism and Transnational Culture: The Ka Ho'okolokolonui Kanaka Maoli Tribunal, Hawai'i 1993” in Wilson ed., supra note 1, 28; Brigham, John, The Constitution of Law (New York: New York University Press, 1997)Google Scholar.

14. See Yngvesson, Barbara, Virtuous Citizens, Disruptive Subjects (New York: Routledge, 1993)Google Scholar.

15. Merry, Sally Engle, “Courts as Performances: Domestic Violence Hearings in a Hawai'i Family Court” in Hirsch, Susan & Black, Minde Lazarus, eds., Contested States: Law, Hegemony, and Resistance (New York: Routledge, 1994) 35Google Scholar; Merry, Sally Engle, “Wife Battering and the Ambiguities of Rights” in Sarat, Austin & Kearns, Thomas, eds., Identities, Politics, and Rights (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1995) 271Google Scholar; Merry, Sally Engle, “Gender Violence and Legally Engendered Selves” (1995) 2 Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16. Secretary General, From Nairobi to Beijing: Second Review and Appraisal of the Implementation of the Nairobi Forward-Looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women (New York: United Nations, 1995)Google Scholar.

17. Thomas, Dorothy & Beaseley, Michele, “Domestic Violence as a Human Rights Issue” (1993) 15 Human Rights Quarterly 36CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18. Silard, Kathy, “Helping Women to Help Themselves: Counselling Against Domestic Violence in Australia” in Davies, Miranda, ed., Women and Violence (London: Zed Books, 1994) 239Google Scholar.

19. Lucrecia Oller, “Domestic Violence: Breaking the Cycle in Argentina” in Davies, ed., ibid. 229.

20. Dorothy Q. Thomas, “In Search of Solutions: Women's Police Stations in Brazil” in Davies, ed., ibid., 32.

21. Bush, Diane Mitsch, “Women's Movements and State Policy Reform Aimed at Domestic Violence against Women: A Comparison of the Consequences of Movement Mobilization in the U.S. and India” (1992) 6 Gender and Society 587CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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23. Hirsch, Susan, “Productions of Battering: Local Examples of Global Processes” (Paper presented at the Law and Society Association Meetings, Glasgow, Scotland, 1996)Google Scholar [unpublished]; London, Scott, “Conciliation and Domestic Violence in Senegal” (1997) 20 Polar: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 83CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See generally this special issue of Polar on “Gender, Violence and the Law.”

24. Ofei-Aboagye, Rosemary Ofeiba, “Altering the Strands of the Fabric: A Preliminary Look at Domestic Violence in Ghana” (1994) 19 Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 924CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25. The Internet address is http://www.umn.edu/mincava/internat/nane.html and was located during research in April or May 1996.

26. Secreary General, supra note 16 at 125.

27. Ibid.

28. Ibid. at 26.

29. Ibid. at 131–32.

30. Van Bueren, supra note 1 at 759.

31. Secretary General, supra note 16.

32. Platform for Action, Address (Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing, 1995) section D at 112.

33. Ibid. section D at 113.

34. This is part of a broader movement over the last few years to redefine violence against women as a human rights violation. Thomas & Beaseley, supra note 17.

35. Freeman describes the way local groups attempt to use international human rights norms to change national legal systems with reference to women's human rights in several African nations. Freeman, Marsha A., “Women, Law and Land at the Local Level: Claiming Women's Human Rights in Domestic Legal Systems” (1994) 16 Hum. Rts. Q. 559CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36. Madelaine Adelman, (personal communication).

37. Morrow, supra note 22 at 583.

38. The term “gender violence” is helpful since it emphasizes that this is violence defined by the nature of the gendered relationship within which it occurs.

39. McGillivray, Anne & Comaskey, Brenda, Intimate Violence, Aboriginal Women and Justice System Response: A Winnipeg Study (1996)Google Scholar [unpublished].

40. The UN Report of the Secretary General, supra note 16 at 137, notes that all countries have legal measures which are applicable to cases of assault and therefore theoretically available in cases of domestic assault.

41. In order to examine changes in the legal management of wife battering cases, I recorded the texts and the characteristics of all domestic violence and wife desertion cases from the Hilo District Court from 1852 to 1913, a total of 683 cases. These records are housed in the Hawai'i State Archives in Honolulu. The minute books have been preserved in a virtually complete set from Hilo from the 1850s until 1913, but subsequent records were destroyed. This laborious work was done by Erin Campbell and Marilyn Brown. To place these cases in context, I tabulated all the cases coming before this court at ten-year intervals beginning in 1853, a total of 2,325 cases. For each case, I recorded the charge, plea, conviction, disposition, presence of an attorney, and gender and ethnicity of the defendant. I also collected the texts of cases at ten-year intervals, involving interpersonal relationships. For half of this period, court records were in Hawaiian; the rest were in English. These records have been ably translated by Esther Mookini, an experienced translator of 19th-century Hawaiian court records.

42. Dixon provides a chronology for the United States, usefully describing how the 1970s feminist movement, which focused on male domination in patriarchal institutions such as the family, was eclipsed during the early 1980s by social science researchers and family intervention experts who reframed the problem in terms of family functioning. Since the mid-1980s, there has been increasing attention toward stronger arrest policies and criminalization. Dixon, J., “The Nexus of Sex: Spousal Violence, and the State” (1995) 29 Law and Society Rev. 359 at 360–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43. Rodriguez, Noelie Maria, “A Successful Feminist Shelter: A Case Study of the Family Crisis Shelter in Hawaii” (1988) 24 Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 235CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44. In Hilo, the number of requests for Temporary Restraining Orders (T.R.O.s) has increased dramatically since the early 1970s. Between 1971 and 1978, there were seven T.R.O.s issued in Hilo for domestic violence situations. In 1985, there were 250, in 1991, 320, in 1992, 404, in 1993, 451, and by the middle of 1994, there were 252. The number of criminal cases of domestic violence has increased even more, from 31 in 1979, 9 in 1980, to 291 in 1990 and 551 in 1991.

45. Department of Research and Development, 1994 Data Book (County of Hawaii: 1994)Google Scholar.

46. A 1985 statute defining abuse of a family or household member as a misdemeanor adds the provision that a convicted person will serve a minimum jail sentence of 48 hours and “be required to undergo any available domestic violence treatment and counseling program as ordered by the court.” Hawaii Revised Statutes, 709, s. 5.

47. This is an order which allows the restrained person to see the other person but prohibits him from using violence against that person.

48. Program staff believe that batterers should be offered education and will respond when they are ready, although they have limited hopes for reforming men who batter.

49. This information is based on intake forms filled out by the staff of A.T.V. when a person begins the program. Since those who have another violent incident which comes to the attention of the court may be sent back to A.T.V., these numbers count separate intakes, not separate people. I was unable to determine how many people repeated part or all of the program because they dropped out or had new violent incidents, but from observation, it appears that there were some. Information from the intake forms was collected by staff members in a face-to-face interview, with the staff member recording the answers. All the data is self-report. The men may have underestimated their incomes in order to avoid paying the full price for attending the program. The form itself was designed by the program and reflects what the staff wanted to know and the categories which they thought made sense. I am grateful to Marlene King and Tami Miller for their help in collecting this information and to Erin Campbell for entering the data. I have shared this data with the A.T.V. program.

50. In comparison, the 1980 Census reported the following ethnic breakdown for the 35,000 people living in the town of Hilo: 38% Japanese, 27% whites, 19% Hawaiian (probably includes those the A.T.V form labels Hawaiian/mix), 9% Filipino, 8% Spanish origin, 3% Chinese, and smaller numbers of Koreans, Vietnamese, Blacks, and other groups.

51. Almost half of the men (45%) are Catholic and 27% Protestant, while 40% of the women are Catholic and 36% Protestant.

52. Joy Adapon and Marilyn Brown.

53. A.T.V. did intake interviews of 984 people, three-fourths of whom had been referred from either the civil or the criminal court. Of these, 70% said the police came to their house because of family violence but only 28% said the police issued a warning citation. Forty-four percent of the men and seven percent of the women said they were arrested for abuse.

54. In 1994–1995, the office received a foundation grant to develop a program targeted at coordinating various agencies dealing with domestic violence.

55. All respondents report low incomes: 57% earn under $8,000 a year and 79% earn under $13,000. Men have slightly higher incomes, with 23% reporting incomes over $13,000 while only 16% of the women earn over $13,000. One quarter of the men have education beyond high school while 38% of the women do. Half of all men and women are under the age of 30. Over 80% have children.

56. Merry, Sally Engle, Getting Justice and Getting Even: Legal Consciousness among Working-Class Americans (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990)Google Scholar.

57. Dixon notes that some evidence indicates that both genders are aggressive in marital situations but that women are more often and more seriously injured by fights than men. Dixon, supra note 42 at 363.

58. Collier, Jane, Maurer, Bill & Navaz-Suarez, Liliana, “Introduction: Special Issue on Sanctioned Identities” (1995) 2 Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

59. Appadurai, Arjun, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996)Google Scholar; Preis, supra note 1.

60. Preis, ibid. at 289–90.

61. Lewis notes that Western liberal human rights scholars have prioritized civil and political rights over economic, social, and cultural rights while the opposite is true of African human rights scholars. Lewis, supra note 1 at 18.

62. Not so long ago, parts of the United States chose the marriage over the woman. In nineteenth-century Hilo, when Hawai'i was a sovereign nation but had adopted fundamentally the legal system of the United States and Britain, women who deserted their husbands were virtually always returned to them regardless of the degree and frequency of violence in the relationship. In fully one quarter of the cases I examined, court records referred to violence in the marriage, but judges nevertheless returned the women to their husbands and sentenced them to hard labor if they refused or deserted again. See An Na'im, supra note 3.

63. See Cohen, Hyden & Nagan, eds., supra note 5.

64. Sarat & Kearns, eds., supra note 15.