Gender Human Rights And Law

This unique book analyses the impact of international human rights on the concept of gender, demonstrating that gender emerged in the medical study of sexuality and has a complex and broad meaning beyond the sex and gender binaries often assumed by human rights law. The book illustrates which dynamics within the field of human rights hinder the expansion of the concept of gender beyond binaries and which strategies and mechanisms allow and facilitate such an expansion.

Gender and Human Rights in a Global, Mobile Era delves into feminist debates surrounding the relationship between gender and human rights through engaging feminist perspectives on the multifaceted issue of human trafficking. Building on analyses of domestic servitude, commercial sex, and labor trafficking by military contractors, and grounded in intersectional feminist cosmopolitanism and feminist theorizing on vulnerability, precarity, and ethical interdependence, Laura Hebert makes several interrelated contributions. As she explores how a feminist gender analysis illuminates the structures and norms enabling trafficking, Hebert simultaneously considers the future of feminist rights advocacy. Emphasizing the sociality of human rights, she encourages feminist scholars and activists to look beyond states as the duty-bearers of human rights and the assumption that human rights are made meaningful mainly through the establishment of legal rights at the national level. She challenges the idea that "feminism" can be reduced to advocacy on behalf of women’s rights. She also encourages critical reflection on how divisions associated with feminist politics have impeded opportunities for the building of feminist solidarities across differences aimed at the realization of the human rights of all. Strongly interdisciplinary, Gender and Human Rights in a Global, Mobile Era will be of interest to students and scholars throughout the social sciences and humanities.

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.

Human rights are axiomatic with liberal freedom. Yet more rights for women, sexual and religious minorities, has had disempowering and exclusionary effects. Revisiting campaigns for same-sex marriage, violence against women, and Islamic veil bans, Gender, Alterity and Human Rights lays bare how human rights emerge as a project of containment and unfreedom rather than meaningful freedom. Kapur provocatively argues that the futurity of human rights rests in turning away from liberal freedom ­and towards non-liberal registers of freedom.

This volume counters one-sided dominant discursive representations of gender in human rights and transitional justice, and women’s place in the transformations of neoliberal human rights, and contributes a more balanced examination of how transitional justice and human rights institutions, and political institutions impact the lives and experiences of women. Using a multidisciplinary approach, the contributors to this volume theorize and historicize the place of women’s rights (and gender), situating it within contemporary country-specific political, legal, socio-cultural and global contexts. Chapters examine the progress and challenges facing women (and women’s groups) in transitioning countries: from Peru to Argentina, from Kenya to Sierra Leone, and from Bosnia to Sri Lanka, in a variety of contexts, attending especially to the relationships between local and global forces

This book identifies, analyses and discusses the nexus of legal issues that have emerged in recent years around sexuality and gender. It audits these against specific human rights requirements and evaluates the outcomes as evidenced in the legislation and caselaw of six leading common law jurisdictions. Beginning with a snapshot of the legal definitions and sanctions associated with the traditional marital family unit, the book examines the subsequently evolving key concepts and constructs before outlining the contemporary international framework of human rights as it relates to matters of sexuality and gender. It proceeds by identifying a set of themes, including the rights to identity, to form a family, to privacy, to equality and to non-discrimination, and undertakes a comparative evaluation of how these and other themes indicate areas of commonality and difference in the approaches adopted in those common law jurisdictions, as illustrated by the associated legislation and caselaw. It then considers why this should be and assesses the implications.

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.