Digital Domestic Abuse: The need for International Laws and Protections

A domestic protection order is made by the courts in one country with the intention of having effect in that country. Unless exceptional, it has no cross-border reach. If there is a breach of the order and the perpetrator leaves the country and subsequently returns, he or she will then be liable for enforcement action. But being outside the country where the order was made is invariably sufficient to avoid the effectiveness of the order.  Countries with open land borders are particularly prone to perpetrators fleeing across the border, perhaps even living on the other side of the border with the victim nearby albeit separated by an open border. Even so, the victim has the benefit of a protection order with the opportunity of the police services coming to their aid if the perpetrator physically returns, comes close to the victim if there is a zonal order, so that there can be enforcement and appropriate protection.

This is not possible when the domestic abuse is online or in any other digital fashion. Yet this is now the increasing experience either solely or accompanying other domestic abuse. Indeed, where the parties are geographically separated, the abuse is far more likely to be of a digital form.