Feminism and International Law: Theory, Methodology, and Substantive Reform

Abstract

Until recently, international law went unexamined by feminist legal scholars. 1 While feminists have applied manifold theories of jurisprudence to the formal and informal legal systems of the United States and many other countries from New Guinea to Saudi Arabia, rarely have they directed their attention to the procedures and substance of the international legal system. Among those authors who have studied the subject, most tend to concentrate solely on women's rights as an aspect of international human rights law, although a few, such as Judith Gardam and Robin Teske, have ventured into international humanitarian law and the law governing the conduct of armed conflict (ius in bello). Yet the broadest treatment of the subject remains the first. In 1991, Hilary Charlesworth, Christine Chinkin, and Shelley Wright jointly attempted a general feminist critique of international law in The American Journal of International Law. 2 Their purpose was to [End Page 659] show that "the structures of international lawmaking and the content of the rules of international law privilege men; if women's interests are acknowledged at all, they are marginalized. International law is a thoroughly gendered system." 3 Their argument posits that international law is pervasively "gendered" or, more specifically, "male gendered," conceptually, procedurally, and substantively--assertions that have been repeated by feminists many times since.