International Human Rights

Citation:

Cohn, Carol, ed. 2012. "Sexual Violence and Women’s Health in War." Chap. 3 in Women and Wars. Malden, MA: Polity Press. 

Author: Pamela DeLargy

Abstract:

In chapter 3, “Sexual Violence and Women’s Health in War,” Pamela DeLargy discusses the incidence of rape in wartime, and other forms of sexual violence and exploitation. She addresses both the explanations for and consequences of sexual violence, looking at its short- and long-term implications not only for the women themselves, but also for their communities. As wartime sexual violence has lately been receiving increased global attention, DeLargy also looks at the development of response and prevention policies within the international health, human rights, and security communities, and at some of the unforeseen challenges and unintended consequences of their actions. The chapter then reviews some other important health risks for women in war, focusing particularly on reproductive health.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Gender, Women, Health, Reproductive Health, International Law, International Human Rights, Rights, Human Rights, Security, Sexual Violence, Rape, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

Year: 2012

Citation:

Charlesworth, Hilary. 2005. ‘Not Waving but Drowning: Gender Mainstreaming and Human Rights in the United Nations’. Harvard Human Rights Journal 18: 1–14.

Author: Hilary Charlesworth

Abstract:

 The Article focuses on gender mainstreaming in the U.N. human rights system, although the technique has been embraced by many other institutions, both national and international. Mainstreaming as a methodology has also become popular in a broad range of areas. For example, international institutions have adopted the jargon of environmental mainstreaming, HIV/AIDS mainstreaming, and indeed human rights mainstreaming. 

Keywords: gender mainstreaming, United Nations, human rights

Topics: Gender, Gender Mainstreaming, International Law, International Human Rights, International Organizations

Year: 2005

Citation:

Nesiah, Vasuki. 2013. "Feminism as Counter-Terrorism: The Seduction of Power." In Gender, National Security and Counter-Terrorism: Human Rights Perspectives, edited by Margaret L. Satterthwaite and Jayne C. Huckerby. London: Routledge. 

Author: Vasuki Nesiah

Topics: Armed Conflict, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Governance, International Law, International Human Rights, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militarization, Rights, Human Rights, Security, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325, Sexual Violence, Terrorism, Violence

Year: 2013

Citation:

Jenkins, Robert, and Anne Marie Goetz. 2010. "Addressing Sexual Violence in Internationally Mediated Peace Negotiations." International Peacekeeping 17 (2): 261–77.

Authors: Robert Jenkins , Anne Marie Goetz

Abstract:

Topics: DDR, Economies, Gender, Women, Girls, Gender Roles, Gender-Based Violence, International Human Rights, Justice, Crimes against Humanity, International Tribunals & Special Courts, Reparations, Transitional Justice, War Crimes, Peacekeeping, Post-Conflict, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325, UNSCR 1820, Security Sector Reform, Sexual Violence, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

Year: 2010

Citation:

Irvine, Jill A. 2013. ‘Leveraging Change: Women’s Organizations and the Implementation of UNSCR 1325 in the Balkans’. International Feminist Journal of Politics 15 (1): 20–38.  

Author: Jill A. Irvine

Abstract:

This article examines how regional and local women’s organizations in Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo have used UNSCR 1325 as a tool for organizing and advocacy in three broad areas: women’s inclusion in decision-making processes; regional and human security; and transitional justice. In response to perceived unwillingness by international as well as national actors to implement UNSCR 1325, women’s organizations developed strategies to use this international norm to achieve their goals. They have done this, I argue, through a double ‘boomerang effect’. In their seminal 1998 work, Activists Beyond Borders, Keck and Sikkink demonstrated how NGOs operate to produce a boomerang effect; they appeal to transnational actors to assert international pressure against national governments in order to enforce compliance with human rights norms. In attempting to implement UNSCR 1325, women’s organizations have also often added a reverse dimension, mobilizing local support through grassroots campaigns and regional networks in order to force the United Nations and other international actors to comply with their own resolution concerning women, peace and security. In doing so, they have achieved some success in promoting inclusion. They have been less successful in using UNSCR 1325 as a tool for addressing structural sources of inequality including militarism and neo-liberal models of economic development.

Keywords: UNSCR 1325, women's organizations, political inclusion, human security, transitional justice

Topics: Gender, Women, Governance, International Law, International Human Rights, International Organizations, Justice, Transitional Justice, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militarism, NGOs, Political Participation, Rights, Human Rights, Security, Human Security, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325 Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina, Kosovo, Serbia

Year: 2013

Citation:

Coleman, Llezlie Green. 2002. “Gender Hate Propaganda and Sexual Violence in the Rwandan Genocide: An Argument for Intersectionality in International Law.” Columbia Human Rights Law Review 33 (3): 733-76.

Author: Llezlie Green Coleman

Abstract:

This article explores the gendered dimensions of genocidal hate propaganda before and during the Rwandan genocide and proposes that the international tribunal consider these cases with an intersectional approach that attempts to fully appreciate the harm inflicted upon Tutsi women.

Keywords: human rights, genocide, critical theory

Topics: Armed Conflict, Civil Wars, Ethnic/Communal Wars, Ethnicity, Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Genocide, International Law, International Criminal Law, International Human Rights, Justice, Crimes against Humanity, International Tribunals & Special Courts, TRCs, Non-State Armed Groups, Race, Rights, Women's Rights, Sexual Violence, Male Perpetrators, Rape, SV against Women, Violence Regions: Africa, Central Africa, East Africa Countries: Rwanda

Year: 2002

Citation:

Olsson, Louise, and Theodora-Ismene Gizelis. 2013. “An Introduction to UNSCR 1325.” International Interactions 39 (4): 425-34.

Authors: Louise Olsson, Theodora-Ismene Gizelis

Abstract:

The article introduces various papers published within the issue on the United Nations' Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (UNSCR 1325) and women's participation in peace agreements and in peace-related political processes.

Keywords: UNSCR 1325, political participation, peace process, peace agreements

Topics: Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Hierarchies, Gender Equality/Inequality, Gender Equity, International Law, International Human Rights, Peace Processes, Political Participation, Rights, Human Rights, Women's Rights, Security, Human Security, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325

Year: 2013

Citation:

Kapur, Ratna. March 2014. "Gender, sovereignty and the rise of a sexual security regime in international law and postcolonial India." Melbourne Journal of International Law 14 (2): 1-29.

Author: Ratna Kapur

Abstract:

In this paper, I use the recent ‘Delhi rape’ case that received global attention in 2012 to trace how an appalling episode of violence against a woman is articulated within stable categories of gender and invites state intervention in the form of criminal justice, stringent sentencing and a strengthened sexual security regime. I argue that the stability of gender and gender categories based on the binary of male and female has been an integral feature of international law and has been maintained partly through an overwhelming focus on sexual violence against women by states as well as non-state actors. This focus relies on a statist approach to sovereignty, where advocacy is directed at the state for redress and protection, primarily in the form of carceral measures, which in turn translate into a tightening of the sexual security regime. By continuing to appeal to the state as a central custodian of women’s rights, feminist and human rights advocacy has failed to address the ways in which power is dispersed and does not operate in a top-down manner. It also operates in terms of domination, subjugation and subject constitution. I examine how a security discourse operates to regulate, discipline and manage gender in the context of three areas of international law: anti-trafficking interventions in international human rights law; wartime rape in international criminal law; and the ‘taming of gender’ in the context of the Security Council resolutions 1325 and 1820 on gender, peace and security.

Topics: Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, International Law, International Human Rights, Rights, Human Rights, Women's Rights, Security, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325, UNSCR 1820, Sexual Violence, Rape, SV against Women, Trafficking Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: India

Year: 2014

Citation:

Rimmer, Susan Harris. 2010. “Sexing the Subject of Transitional Justice.” The Australian Feminist Law Journal 32: 123-47.

Author: Susan Harris Rimmer

Abstract:

In the absence of the requisite political will at both the domestic and international level, transitional justice mechanisms can be manipulated or rendered impotent, whilst creating false expectations, waylaying the efforts of human rights advocates and costing millions of donor dollars. A feminist strategic legalist approach would focus on gaining the full participation of women in peace negotiations and key decisions about transitional justice processes and the development of a justice sector, and preserving evidence and acquiring data in relation to international and domestic gender crimes for the day when fair trials can be held. The formal ending of violence does not necessarily mean the achievement of peace, rather it provides a 'new set of opportunities that can be grasped or thrown away'. Law in a transitional period might hold an 'independent potential for effecting transformative politics' and 'liberalising' change. On the other hand, in the context of the societal breakdown caused by armed conflict, feminist scholars may be asking international law to engage in too much 'heavylifting'. If transitional justice represents theory and praxis in a liminal zone between international relations and international law, both of which have proved resistant to feminist analysis, why are many feminists so confident that transitional justice represents an opportunity for transformative change?

Topics: Armed Conflict, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Governance, Post-Conflict Governance, International Law, International Criminal Law, International Human Rights, International Humanitarian Law (IHL), International Organizations, Justice, International Tribunals & Special Courts, War Crimes, Peacebuilding, Peace Processes, Political Participation, Post-Conflict, Rights, Human Rights, Women's Rights

Year: 2010

Citation:

Chappell, Louise. 2010. “Gender and Judging at the International Criminal Court.” Politics & Gender 6 (3): 484-95.

Author: Louise Chappell

Abstract:

Imagine this: a court presided over by a majority of women judges--many of whom are from racially marginalized backgrounds--and which has a "constitution" that has gender justice at its core. Incredibly, given what we know about gender and judging cross-nationally, this is not some utopian vision but the current reality at the International Criminal Court (ICC). As of May 2010, the 18 member ICC bench consisted of 11 women judges, most of whom were from outside the West and many of whom have expertise in gender-based violence. This development raises a range of important questions, two of which I want to speculate on in the following discussion: How is it that the sex profile of the ICC bench differs so dramatically from domestic-level courts? What difference might this profile make to the transformation of international law in terms of expanding gender justice principles?

Topics: Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Gender Equity, Governance, Post-Conflict Governance, International Law, International Criminal Law, International Human Rights, International Humanitarian Law (IHL), International Organizations, Justice, International Tribunals & Special Courts, Transitional Justice, War Crimes, Peacebuilding, Post-Conflict, Rights, Women's Rights

Year: 2010