Feminicides of Girl Children in the Family Context

Clara Chapdelaine-Feliciati, Ph.D. in Law, Oxford University (2016), Lawyer (Barrister and Solicitor), is Assistant Professor at York University, Toronto, Canada. She published articles in several law journals, including the Cambridge International Law Journal and the International Journal of Children’s Rights.

'This book constitutes a rare application of legal semiotics to analyse legislation as well as case law and assess whether the provisions of international treaties sufficiently protect girls against gender-based infanticide (...) It presents a meaningful addition to literature on feminicide and the relevant international legal framework (...) Her work is original and moreover important, as feminicide has become such a widespread phenomenon (...) the book is fascinating for an academic such as myself conducting research on semiotics, discourse analysis and dictionary definitions from a feminist perspective, as it reveals the semiotic implications of common discourse.'Annick Farina, University of Florence, International Journal for the Semiotics of Law (2025) 38:731–734;doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-024-10235-y‘If read together [with The Status of the Girl Child under International Law (CUP 2025), by the same author,] the two books chart a coherent research track from diagnosing a specific site of erasure in human rights law to offering a comprehensive account of how textual silences across major instruments produce the juridical invisibility of girls. For scholars of international law, feminist theory, and children’s rights, the value of this track lies not only in its original methodological synthesis but also in its provocation to rethink how much weight international legal scholarship places on the wording of treaties themselves.’Shisong Jiang, Chongqing University, Social & Legal Studies (2025) 1-15; doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/09646639251385049'Chapdelaine-Feliciati’s monograph is a crucial reading for legal scholars and semioticians who seek to understand the impact of an international legal instrument’s language on its ability to protect fundamental rights, and for those who seek ways to improve existing human rights instruments. Feminicides of Girl Children is also the first monograph applying Welby’s Significs Theory and the Meaning Triad to evaluate the sense, meaning, and significance of the provisions of international treaties . . . and the first application of semioethics to the legal field thus anchoring the novel ‘legal semioethics’ as a theory to evaluate signs in law.’Nour Dib, McGill University, Revue internationale de sémiotique juridique (2026) 1-7: doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-026-10446-5

• ContentsFeminicides of Girl Children in the Family Context: An International Human Rights Law ApproachClara Chapdelaine-FeliciatiAbstractKeywordsPart 1: IntroductionPart 2: Feminicide and Female InfanticidePart 3: Protection under the International Covenant on Civil and Political RightsPart 4: Conclusion and RecommendationsAcknowledgementsReferences