What’s law got to do with it?: A reply to Baldez and Bunting

Abstract

This reply explores points of agreement, tensions, and lingering questions related to a scholarly conversation among the pieces by DeLaet, Baldez, and Bunting on the potential and limits of international human rights law as a tool for promoting women's rights and equality as part of this special edition of Global Discourse on Gender, Sexuality, and the Law. DeLaet's piece takes a macro view of this question and points to the failure of international human rights law to generate systemic change globally. In her examination of Cuba's participation in the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, Baldez offers a relatively more positive assessment of the potential for international human rights law to transform human rights outcomes when states participate in treaty reporting processes. Focusing specifically on international criminal law, Bunting's exploration of Ugandan victim survivors’ views on the prosecution of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court offers a mixed perspective, whereby international criminal trials may provide political space for meaning-making and historical documentation even if they do not provide for restorative justice, healing, or gender equality. Each of these pieces indicates that law in and of itself is insufficient to generate transformative change in support of women's rights and equality. They differ in the extent to which they view law as a primary tool for mobilizing change.