Feminist Perspectives on Contemporary International Law: Between Resistance and Compliance?

Description

The essays in this volume analyse feminism's positioning vis-a-vis international law and the current paradigms of international law. The authors argue that, willingly or unwillingly, feminist perspectives on international law have come to be situated between 'resistance' and 'compliance'. That is, feminist scholarship aims at deconstructing international law to show why and how 'women' have been marginalised; at the same time feminists have been largely unwilling to challenge the core of international law and its institutions, remaining hopeful of international law's potential for women. The analysis is clustered around three themes: the first part, theory and method, looks at how feminist perspectives on international law have developed and seeks to introduce new theoretical and methodological tools (especially through a focus on psychoanalysis and geography). The second part, national and international security, focuses on how feminists have situated themselves in relation to the current discourses of 'crisis', the post-9/11 NGO 'industry' and the changing discourses of violence against women. The third part, global and local justice, addresses some of the emerging trends in international law, focusing especially on transitional justice, state-building, trafficking and economic globalisation.

Dr Sari Kouvo is Senior Program Associate with the International Centre for Transitional Justice and Co-Director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network. Dr Zoe Pearson is a lecturer in the School of Law, Keele University.

...contains high-level, cutting-edge research that will be of interest to all those working in the field of international law. This collection of essays reflects the sophisticated nature of contemporary feminists' engagement with international law. The standard of the contributions is consistently high, and overall the book raises a number of important questions about the future of feminism and international law and points to a range of international law spaces, both large and small, that are open to radical re-understandings. Bringing together eminent writers with a great variety of scholarly interests, it also demonstrates the utility of inter-disciplinarity to feminist thought and methodology. -- Loveday Hodson * European Journal of International Law, Volume 24, Issue 4, 2013 and globallawbooks.org * ...a worthwhile work by some of the world's leading feminist theorists [that] offers a challenging and thought-provoking account. -- Ramona Vijeyarasa * The International Journal of Transitional Justice Volume 7 *