These reports helped to define violence against women as a human rights violation along with the duty of states to exercise "due diligence " in preventing violence against women in the family, the community, and the public space. .
Also in the early 1990s, the UN's Commission on the Status of Women recommended the formulation of an international instrument on violence against women and developed the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women in 1993, working with meetings of groups of experts. In 1994 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women unanimously (Van Bueren 1995: 753). Although it has no binding force, this Declaration does have the moral strength of world consensus (Coomaraswamy and Kios 1999: 182). It is a comprehensive document which defines violence against women broadly to include physical, sexual, and psychological harm or threats of harm in public or private life (Article 1). It names gender-based violence as a violation of human rights and as an instance of sex discrimination and inequality (Connors 1996: 27-8). The Declaration attributes the roots of gender violence to historically unequal power relations between men and women, arguing that it is socially constructed and historically justified rather than natural (Coomaraswamy and Kios 1999: 183). It prohibits invoking custom, tradition, or religious considerations to avoid its obligations and urges states to exercise "due diligence " to prevent, investigate, and punish acts of violence against women whether perpetrated by the state or private persons (Article 4; Van Bueren 1995: 753). .
Scholars and non-governmental organizations contributed in very significant ways to this redefinition of gender violence. In 1994, Rhonda Copeland, a professor of law at the City University of New York Law School, labeled domestic violence a form of torture (1994), a position supported by Amnesty International (AI Report 2001).