Feminism In International Law

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Compared to the cold war period of the twentieth century, feminism in international law developed at a considerable level in last three decades. At least the word feminism is not now totally unknown to different parts of the world! Feminist scholars like Hilary Charlesworth, Christine Chinkin, Shelley Wright and others, remarkably contributed to the development of feminist theory in international law. However, decade to decade feminist approach in international law was different. Significant issues and events influenced a lot in it. The idea of this publication is deep-rooted to a workshop "Between Resistance and Compliance? Feminist Perspective in an Era of anxiety and Terror" held at International Institute for The Sociology of Law in 2008…show more content…
Feminist scholarship in international law" in which she contests and draws on Janet Halley's (Harvard Scholar, author of the book "Split Decisions: How and Why to Take a Break from Feminism") argument that we should "take a break from feminism" in attempting to develop a deeper feminist engagement with the contemporary peace and state-building agendas. Charlesworth represents that women's mere presence and formal inclusion cannot ensure genuine gender equality in a true sense. From her point of view, feminist have failed to secure access in the international law due to born of frustration at the impenetrability of the discourses of knowledge and the power structures. Although there are Official appearances but still feminism remains on the margin of international law. Still it is like a spectre of tokenism in the socio-political backdrop. She explores insights derived from international relations and political theory on democratization and state-building and concludes that feminist massage must be accompanied by feminist methods of engagement if they are to be productively used in the many varied contexts of women's lives. It is clear that Charlesworth is very pessimistic about what has been achieved thus far. In the subsequent chapter, Yoriko Otomo stated that international feminist lawyers are in an era of anxiety and terror. Though international law developed much, there is no significant inclusion of feminist view within international law. Mentioning it as a "Scholarly Ghetto" she said that the state of feminist international lawyers is in between resistance and compliance. She stated that masculine foundation of international law still much biased in its modern shape. International law's language reflects its unenforceability which results often the uncontrolled behavior of sovereign. Three notions: space, spatiality, and location are prominent in the contribution of Zoe

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