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Norma Khouri brought the issue of honour killings into the news in Australia. Whatever one thinks of Khouri, the story she had to tell was based on the reality of many women’s lives, not only in Jordan but also in Italy, Kurdistan, Latin America, the UK, South Asian and Nordic countries. The purpose of this book is to support human rights activists, policy-makers and lawyers by explaining what constitutes honour crimes and how they vary across different country contexts. It develops a human rights framework as an alternative to a cultural relativist approach. It urges the reform of many national legal systems which enable men to rely on the pretext of ‘honour crimes’ in order to get a reduced sentence. Like other acts of violence against women, they have no justification.

In the Australian context, the provocation rule could be considered a descendent of the ‘honour’ defence. This rule has enabled men to claim provocation – an insult to their honour – as an excuse for murdering wives, girlfriends and former partners. Amnesty International is running a massive campaign dealing with violence against women. This book draws out those further connections by focussing on the legal protections, the social ‘obligations’ and the deadly consequences for women.

This marvellous collection of essays is an important contribution to our collective understanding of the range of violence, mainly against women, that goes under the shorthand of 'honour crimes'. Like many such terms, it silences and conceals structures of domination, of violence and sexual regulation as much as it reveals the kind of defences that patriarchy summons to its aid.