Women's Rights

Citation:

Tripp, Aili Mari. 2009. “Conflicting Agendas? Women’s Rights and Customary Law in African Constitutional Reform.” In Constituting Equality: Gender Equality and Comparative Constitutional Law, edited by Susan H. Williams, 173–94. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Author: Aili Mari Tripp

Topics: Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Governance, Constitutions, Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Africa

Year: 2009

Citation:

Coleman, Felicia V. 2009. “Gender Equality and the Rule of Law in Liberia: Statutory Law, Customary Law, and the Status of Women.” In Constituting Equality: Gender Equality and Comparative Constitutional Law, edited by Susan H. Williams, 195–212. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Author: Felicia V. Coleman

Topics: Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Liberia

Year: 2009

Citation:

Calaguas, Mark J., Cristina M. Drost, and Edward R. Fluet. 2007. “Legal Pluralism & Women’s Rights: A Study in Post-Colonial Tanzania.” Columbia Journal of Gender & Law 16 (2): 471-549.

Authors: Mark J. Calaguas, Cristina M. Drost, Edward R. Fluet

Abstract:

Recognizing a dearth of legal research on Zanzibar, the authors explore the complex legal and cultural landscape of this archipelago and its relationship to mainland Tanzania. The article discusses the problems that arise when multicultural societies adopt a pluralist system of justice in order to preserve the traditions of its diverse communities. Although the article focuses on Tanzania, the problems that arise from multicultural accommodations affect not only young, postcolonial nations in Africa and Asia, but also individuals in cosmopolitan, economically-developed countries such as Israel and the United States. As countries wrestle with ever diversifying ethnic and religious populations, such a study is an important tool in ensuring that equal rights are provided to all citizens.

Topics: Ethnicity, Gender, Women, Justice, Religion, Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Africa, East Africa Countries: Tanzania

Year: 2007

Citation:

Kalajdzic, Jasminka. 1995. “Rape, Representation, and Rights: Permeating International Law with the Voices of Women.” Queen’s Law Journal 21: 457.

Author: Jasminka Kalajdzic

Abstract:

The mass rapes of Bosnian women by Serb soldiers were a tool of war specifically used to systematically drive away women and their communities. This paper examines that phenomenon in light of representations of rape in current literature and the effort to develop a feminist understanding of rape. It considers the feminist debate over whether the mass rapes in Bosnia should be seen as a crime perpetrated against the women as female individuals or against the Bosnian community. The foundation for this examination is  adiscussion of three normative conceptions which affect international treatment of rape as a war crime - rape as part of the game of war, as an attack on community, and as terrorization and retailiation. The author then documents the exclusion of any conclusive mention of rape from the Hague Conventions (1907) and discusses the repercussions of its eventual definition in the later Geneva Conventions (1949). Finally, the author calls for gender-sensitive approaches to humanitarian assistance, for sensitive treatment of rape survivors, and for the injection of a female voice into humanitarian law.

Keywords: International Humanitarian Law, rape, Bosnia

Topics: Gender, Women, International Law, Rights, Women's Rights, Sexual Violence, Rape

Year: 1995

Citation:

Choudhury, Nusrat. 2007. “Constrained Spaces for  Islamic Feminism: Women’s Rights and the 2004 Constitution of Afghanistan.” Yale Journal of Law and Feminism 19: 155–99.

Author: Nusrat Choudhury

Abstract:

The Afghan Constitution of 2004 attempts a reconciliation between democracy, Islam, Islamic law, and women's rights. This raises much debate. Although the constitution guarantees equality and includes gender quotas, some fear that the balance struck is too precarious. For example, nothing prevents a judge from relying upon the Shari'a described in the constitution to emphasize the incompatibility between Islamic law and women's rights. The author therefore questions the viability of this legal combination.

Topics: Democracy / Democratization, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Gender Balance, Governance, Constitutions, Quotas, Religion, Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Afghanistan

Year: 2007

Citation:

Baines, Beverley. 2005. “Using the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to Constitute Women.” In The Gender of  Constitutional Jurisprudence, edited by Ruth Rubio-Marín and Beverley Baines, 48–74. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Author: Beverley Baines

Abstract:

After examining the role of feminists in the development of the equality doctrine under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, this chapter assesses Charter sex equality and related jurisprudence from 1985 to 2003. My objective is to reveal the initial impact on women of adopting a rights protecting regime. This impact falls into three categories (i) naming male privilege, (ii) contextualizing women, and (iii) transforming society. The results show much work remains to be done if we expect equality doctrine to transform women’s lives.

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Governance, Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Americas, North America Countries: Canada

Year: 2005

Citation:

Powell, Catherine. 2005. “Lifting Our Veil of Ignorance: Culture, Constitutionalism, and Women’s Human Rights in Post-September 11 America.” Hastings Law Journal 57: 331-383.

Author: Catherine Powell

Topics: Gender, Women, Governance, Constitutions, Rights, Human Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Americas, North America Countries: United States of America

Year: 2005

Citation:

Newdick, Vivian. 2005. “The Indigenous Woman as Victim of Her Culture in Neoliberal Mexico.” Cultural Dynamics 17 (1): 73-92.

Author: Vivian Newdick

Abstract:

This article examines the appearance of an indigenous woman victim subject at the intersection of global and national rights discourses in Mexico. In the case of the rape of three indigenous women by the Mexican Army, in World Bank policy recommendations in which culture and gender are cast as 'impediments to development', and in everyday explanations for poverty, culture is cast as harmful to indigenous women. Structural violence and indigenous women's agency are obscured. This victim subject emerges to contest recent destabilizations of the meanings of gender and culture in the wake of indigenous women's militancy in the 1994 Zapatista uprising.

Topics: Economies, Gender, Women, Indigenous, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Non-State Armed Groups, Rights, Human Rights, Women's Rights, Sexual Violence, Rape, SV against Women, Violence Regions: Americas, North America Countries: Mexico

Year: 2005

Citation:

Buss, Doris, and Ambreena Manji. 2005. International Law: Modern Feminist Approaches. Oxford: Hart Publishing.

Authors: Doris Buss, Ambreena Manji

Abstract:

Over the last 10 years, feminist scholars and activists have turned their attention to international law with apparently dramatic results. The impact of feminist engagement is felt in diverse areas from human rights to environmental law. But what do these successes signal for the future? How open is international law to feminist enquiry? What does it mean to do feminist theory in international law? What lessons have we learned from engaging with international law, and what directions do we still need to explore? This book brings together feminist scholars from Australia, Canada, Sweden, Serbia and Montenegro, the United States and United Kingdom. Drawing on diverse theoretical approaches, the chapters explore the directions and tensions in feminist engagement with various areas of international law from human rights, trade and development, and gender mainstreaming, to humanitarian intervention, and environmental and humanitarian law. (Amazon)

Annotation:

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction
Doris Buss and Ambreena Manji

2. Feminist Approaches to International Law: Reflections From Another Century
Christine Chinkin, Shelley Wright and Hilary Charlesworth

3. International Human Rights and Feminisms: When Discourses Keep Meeting
Karen Engle

4. Feminism Here and Feminism There: Law, Theory and Choice
Thérèse Murphy

5. Austerlitz and International Law: A Feminist Reading at the Boundaries
Doris Buss

6. Disconcerting 'Masculinities': Reinventing the Gendered Subject(s) of International Human Rights Law
Dianne Otto

7. The 'Unforgiven' Sources of International Law: Nation-Building, Violence and Gender in the West(ern)
Ruth Buchanan and Rebecca Johnson

8. 'The Beautyful Ones' of Law and Development
Ambreena Manji

9. Feminist Perspectives on International Economic Law
Fiona Beveridge

10. Transcending the Conquest of Nature and Women: A Feminist Perspective on International Environmental Law
Annie Rochette

11. The United Nations and Gender Mainstreaming: Limits and Possibilities
Sari Kouvo

12. Women's Rights and the Organization of African Unity and African Union: The Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa
Rachel Murray

13. Sexual Violence, International Law and Restorative Justice
Vesna Nikolic-Ristanovic

Reviews of International Law: Modern Feminist Approaches:

By Nicole LaViolette: http://www.academia.edu/3403811/Review_of_Doris_Buss_and_Ambreena_Manji_eds._International_Law_Modern_Feminists_Approaches

Topics: Development, Environment, Feminisms, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Gender Mainstreaming, Humanitarian Assistance, International Law, International Human Rights, International Humanitarian Law (IHL), Rights, Human Rights, Women's Rights

Year: 2005

Citation:

Andrews, Penelope E. 2007. “Learning to Love after Learning to Harm: Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Gender Equality and Cultural Values.” Michigan State Journal of International Law 15 (1): 41–62.

Author: Penelope E. Andrews

Abstract:

The question that the Jacob Zuma rape trial and its aftermath raised was how a country like South Africa, with such a wonderful Constitution and expansive Bill of Rights, could generate such negative and retrogressive attitudes towards women. In line with this inquiry, this article raises three issues: The first focuses on the legacy of apartheid violence and specifically the cultures of masculinity, the underbelly of apartheid violence. Second, the article explores the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), a vital part of the post-apartheid  transformation agenda, to examine how the TRC pursued violations of women's human rights. The third part of the analysis is an examination of the last twelve years of constitutional transformation in South Africa, and particularly the pursuit of gender equality and the eradication of violence against women.

Topics: Gender, Women, Masculinity/ies, Gender-Based Violence, Gender Equality/Inequality, Masculinism, Governance, Constitutions, Justice, TRCs, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Rights, Human Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: South Africa

Year: 2007