A/HRC/26/38 The Special Rapporteur notes that none of the soft law developments on violence against women has moved into the realm of customary international law as yet. 69. There is more specificity in three key regional human rights treaties that address violence against women, namely the 1994 Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women (Convention of Belém do Pará), the 2003 Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol) and the recent Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention). The normative underpinnings of the obligations of States to eliminate violence against women have evolved since 1994, and the regional treaties reflect international standard-setting developments, but within a legally binding regional instrument. Despite the specificity of these instruments, there are limitations with regard to, for example, definitions and the comprehensiveness of the coverage of persons and acts as reflected in the instruments. Such gaps, as well as the absence of specific regional instruments in other regions of the world, underscore the need for a universal legally binding instrument on violence against women at the United Nations level. 7. Shift in understanding of gendered responses and a move towards a focus on men and boys41 70. In the past few years there has been a move away from the understanding of “gender focus” as referring to women, including with regard to violence, as articulated and understood in international normative frameworks and by women’s groups. One author aptly articulates the concerns and frustrations expressed by women’s rights NGOs and by individuals as follows: “gender, stripped of ideas of male privilege and female subordination, came to mean that women and men suffered equally the costs of the existing gender order. Women’s organizations were increasingly asked ‘if you are working on gender, then where are the men’, and they were increasingly pressured to include men. On the heels of this pressure, a new … actor came into focus – men’s organizations. The existence of already weakened women’s organizations was now further threatened and feminist attempts at movement building faced additional challenges. The increasing focus on men and men’s organizations … is seen by some as a new fad, the latest silver bullet to achieving gender equality, and a threat to women’s organizations and women’s movements. In this view, donor attention to men’s organizations seems to signify a shift of support away from women’s empowerment and women’s leadership, and a handing over of the reins in the struggle for gender equality to men. Men are once more in charge – only this time, they are in charge of women’s liberation struggles”.42 71. It is clear from the many concerns raised with the Special Rapporteur that, although the shift to the men and boys agenda is fraught with difficulty, it appears to have attracted a great deal of funding, recognition and political support. In order to legitimize their mandates, many men’s organizations claim that the inclusion of men and boys is a binding obligation called for in numerous international documents and frameworks, including the Rio Declaration of the Global Symposium on Engaging Men and Boys on Achieving 41 42 Claire Malcolm and Helen Griffiths, “The limitations of engaging men and boys in the prevention of violence against women”, January 2014 (unpublished paper on file with the author). Shamim Meer, “Struggles for Gender Equality: Reflections on the place of men and men’s organisations”, Open Debate, (Johannesburg, Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, 2011), chaps. 2–4. Available from www.osisa.org. 19