Gender and Conflict: Potential Gains of Civil Society Efforts to Include Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Transitional Justice

Abstract

Current approaches to deal with gender issues in transitional justice suffer important limitations. This paper focuses on one of them. It outlines the consequences of limiting transitional justice strategies to civil and political rights in so far as gender dimensions of the conflict are concerned. The article argues that by narrowly focusing on violations of civil and political rights, transitional justice mechanisms gloss over important gender dimensions of the past conflict. Conflicts, their termination, as well as efforts of transitional justice are gendered. As Bell and O’Rourke argue, matters that address underlying issues of discrimination, domination and improvement of physical, social and legal security particularly with regard to gender, are often addressed as secondary, or not at all. If it is true that women and girls are disproportionately affected by violations of ESCR - both during armed conflict and in peacetime - donor agencies, human rights organisations and governmental authorities must be convinced that narrow conceptions of what constitute human rights violations fail to meaningfully deal with women’s experiences in conflict.