Women and International Human Rights Law


Book Description

This book presents the findings of the first comprehensive study on the most recent and most unique and innovative method of monitoring international human rights law at the United Nations. Since its existence, there has yet to be a complete and comprehensive book solely dedicated to exploring the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process. Women and International Human Rights Law provides a much-needed insight to what the process is, how it operates in practice, and whether it meets its fundamental aim of promoting the universality of all human rights. The book addresses the topics with regard to international human rights law and will be of interest to researchers, academics, and students interested in the monitoring and implementation of international human rights law at the United Nations. In addition, it will form supplementary reading for those students studying international human rights law on undergraduate programmes and will also appeal to academics and students with interests in political sciences and international relations.




Human Rights of Women


Book Description

Rebecca J. Cook and the contributors to this volume seek to analyze how international human rights law applies specifically to women in various cultures worldwide, and to develop strategies to promote equitable application of human rights law at the international, regional, and domestic levels. Their essays present a compelling mixture of reports and case studies from various regions in the world, combined with scholarly assessments of international law as these rights specifically apply to women.




Human Rights & Gender Violence


Book Description

Human rights law and the legal protection of women from violence are still fairly new concepts. As a result, substantial discrepancies exist between what is decided in the halls of the United Nations and what women experience on a daily basis in their communities. Human Rights and Gender Violence is an ambitious study that investigates the tensions between global law and local justice. As an observer of UN diplomatic negotiations as well as the workings of grassroots feminist organizations in several countries, Sally Engle Merry offers an insider's perspective on how human rights law holds authorities accountable for the protection of citizens even while reinforcing and expanding state power. Providing legal and anthropological perspectives, Merry contends that human rights law must be framed in local terms to be accepted and effective in altering existing social hierarchies. Gender violence in particular, she argues, is rooted in deep cultural and religious beliefs, so change is often vehemently resisted by the communities perpetrating the acts of aggression. A much-needed exploration of how local cultures appropriate and enact international human rights law, this book will be of enormous value to students of gender studies and anthropology alike.




International Women’s Rights Law and Gender Equality


Book Description

The law is a well-known tool in fighting gender inequality, but which laws actually advance women’s rights? This book unpacks the complex nuances behind gender-responsive domestic legislation, from several of the world’s leading experts on gender equality. Drawing on domestic examples and international law, it provides a primer of theory alongside tangible and practical solutions to fulfil the promise of the law to deliver equality between men and women. Part I outlines what progress has been made to date on eradicating gender inequality, and insights into the law’s potential as one lever in the global struggle for equality. Parts II and III go on to explore concrete areas of law, with case studies from multiple jurisdictions that examine how well domestic legislation is working for women. The authors bring their critical lens to areas of law often considered from a gender perspective – gender-based violence, women’s reproductive health, labour and gender equality quotas – while bringing much-needed analysis to issues often ignored in gender debates, such as taxation, environmental justice and good governance. Part IV seeks to move from a theoretical goal of greater accountability to a practical one. It explores both accountability for international women’s rights norms at the domestic level and the potential of feminist approaches to legislation to deliver laws that work for women. Written for students, academics, legislators and policymakers engaged in international women’s rights law, gender equality, government accountability and feminist legal theory, this book has tremendous transformative potential to drive forward legal change towards the eradication of gender inequality.




Women's International and Comparative Human Rights


Book Description

Women's International and Comparative Human Rights is a collection of materials that provide information and insight into the complex issues of international human rights and the laws and customs that specifically impact women in countries all over the world. These materials include: excerpted cases, statutes, treaties, newspaper articles, law review articles, books, U.N. treaty organs and committee reports, and cases emanating from regional and international tribunals. By applying an interdisciplinary approach, Professor Tiefenbrun looks into the history of the global human rights movement, the structure of the United Nations and its human rights system, and the relationship of international law to the development of international human rights laws that relate specifically to women. The book examines women's civil, political, social, economic, and cultural rights, women's human rights in armed conflict; women's fundamental right to manifest their religion; their right to be free from slavery and sex trafficking; the rights of women with disabilities; and the right of women to be free from institutionalized female infanticide, sex selection abortion, child soldiering, sexual violence and torture. The Appendix contains the major international human rights treaties protecting women and children. This book is a useful and convenient book for courses in international human rights, women and the law, and women's international human rights. "Tiefenbrun (Thomas Jefferson School of Law) successfully guides readers through the volume and presents a very complex subject in a clear manner. This important work argues that the human rights needs of women are not and should not be assumed to be identical to those of men. The author not only provides evidence but also places it in theoretical frameworks, such as feminist theory. Case study comparisons of laws in different countries meld the facts and theories and act as helpful examples. ...This book is an especially useful introduction to the limits of current international and domestic human rights laws for the protection of women." -- CHOICE Magazine, L. E. Lyons, Northwestern University




Women, the Koran and International Human Rights Law


Book Description

Religion plays a pivotal role in the way women are treated around the world, socially and legally. This book discusses three Islamic human rights approaches: secular, non-compatible, reconciliatory (compatible), and proposes a contextual interpretive approach. It is argued that the current gender discriminatory statutory Islamic laws in Islamic jurisdictions, based on the decontextualised interpretation of the Koran, can be reformed through "Ijtihad": independent individual reasoning. It is claimed that the original intention of the Koran was to protect the rights of women and raise their status in society, not to relegate them to subordination. This Koranic intention and spirit may be recaptured through the proposed contextual interpretation which in fact means using an Islamic (or insider) strategy to achieve gender equality in Muslim states and greater compatibility with international human rights law. It discusses the negative impact of the so-called statutory Islamic laws of Pakistan on the enjoyment of women's human rights and robustly challenges their Koranic foundation. While supporting the international human rights regime, this book highlights the challenges to its universality: feminism and cultural relativism. To achieve universal application, genuine voices from different cultures and groups must be accommodated. It is argued that the women's human rights regime does not cover all issues of concern to women and has a weak implementation mechanism. The book argues for effective implementation procedures to turn women's human rights into reality.




International Human Rights Law and Structural Discrimination


Book Description

International courts and other actors are increasingly taking into account pre-existing social structures and inequalities when addressing and redressing human rights violations, in particular discrimination against specific groups. To date, however, academic legal research has paid little attention to this gentle turn in international human rights law and practice to address structural discrimination. In order to address this gap, this study analyses whether and to what extent international and regional human rights frameworks foresee positive obligations for State parties to address structural discrimination, and, more precisely, gender hierarchies and stereotypes as root causes of gender-based violence. In order to answer this question, the book analyses whether or not international human rights law requires pursuing a root-cause-sensitive and transformative approach to structural discrimination against women in general and to the prevention, protection and reparation of violence against women in particular; to what extent international courts and (quasi)judicial bodies address State responsibility for the systemic occurrence of violence against women and its underlying root causes; whether or not international courts and monitoring bodies have suitable tools for addressing structural discrimination within the society of a contracting party; and the limits to a transformative approach.




Women and International Human Rights in Modern Times


Book Description

This casebook provides an overview of the main international and regional legal standards related to the human rights of women and explores their development and practical application in light of contemporary times, challenges, and advances. It navigates the nuances of the ongoing problems of discrimination and gender-based violence, and analyzes them in the context of modern challenges, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the MeToo movement and its aftermath, the growth of non-state actors, environment and climate change, sexual orientation and gender identity, and the digital world, among others.




Women's Rights in Armed Conflict under International Law


Book Description

Laws and norms that focus on women's lives in conflict have proliferated across the regimes of international humanitarian law, international criminal law, international human rights law and the United Nations Security Council. While separate institutions, with differing powers of monitoring and enforcement, implement these laws and norms, the activities of regimes overlap. Women's Rights in Armed Conflict under International Law is the first book to account for this pluralism and institutional diversity. This book identifies key aspects of how different regimes regulate women's rights in conflict, and how they interact. Using country case studies to reveal the practical implications of the fragmented protection of women's rights in conflict, this book offers a dynamic account of how regimes and institutions interact, the extent to which they reinforce each other, and the tensions and gaps in regulation that emerge.




Women and the UN


Book Description

This book provides a critical history of influential women in the United Nations and seeks to inspire empowerment with role models from bygone eras. The women whose voices this book presents helped shape UN conventions, declarations, and policies with relevance to the international human rights of women throughout the world today. From the founding of the UN up until the Latin American feminist movements that pushed for gender equality in the UN Charter, and the Security Council Resolutions on the role of women in peace and conflict, the volume reflects on how women delegates from different parts of the world have negotiated and disagreed on human rights issues related to gender within the UN throughout time. In doing so it sheds new light on how these hidden historical narratives enrich theoretical studies in international relations and global agency today. In view of contemporary feminist and postmodern critiques of the origin of human rights, uncovering women’s history of the United Nations from both Southern and Western perspectives allows us to consider questions of feminism and agency in international relations afresh. With contributions from leading scholars and practitioners of law, diplomacy, history, and development studies, and brought together by a theoretical commentary by the Editors, Women and the UN will appeal to anyone whose research covers human rights, gender equality, international development, or the history of civil society. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781003036708, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.