Legal Feminism and the UN's Gender Mainstreaming Policy: Still Searching for the Blind Spot?

• Author: Seryon Lee
• Pages: 367-384

UN's Gender Mainstreaming Policy

367

VI JEAIL 2 (2013)

Seryon Lee

∗

This article primarily assesses feminism

’

s achievements and challenges,

particularly within the framework of the UN gender mainstreaming policy. The

      

     

the UN gender mainstream process. The second part focused on the progress

      

     

     

     

female analyses on international law in the last two decades, led to the conclusion

  

    



‘

true

’

feminist values.

Keywords

Liberal Feminism, Gender Mainstreaming, SC Resolution 1325, SC Resolution

1820, Beijing Declaration

Legal Feminism and

the UN

’

s Gender

Mainstreaming Policy:

Still Searching for the

Blind Spot?

∗ Professor of International Law, Chonbuk National University (“CBNU”). B.A.(U. Chicago), LL.B.(CBNU),

LL.M.(NYU), Ph.D.(Yonsei). The author may be contacted at: seryon@jbnu.ac.kr / Address: 567 Baekje-daero,

Deokjin-gu, Jeonju-si, Jeollabuk-do, 561-756 Korea. This paper was supported by research funds of Chonbuk

National University in 2013.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14330/jeail.2013.6.2.02

368 Seryon Lee

I. Introduction

As a result of enthusiastic studies and practices of legal feminism for the past

centuries,

1

all the major human rights treaties since 1945 have recognized gender

equality before the law. However, it was not until the 1990s that the issues concerning

violence against women featured seriously on the agenda of the international

community.

2

Although belated, such enlightenment is partially due to the atrocities

committed against women in former Yugoslavia and Rwanda in the early 1990s.

It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that the article on “Feminist Approaches

to International Law”

3

by three eminent international law scholars marked the

beginning of vigorous feminist analyses in international law. Thereafter, it paved the

way for active ‘feminist’ engagement, particularly within the context of international

law for the past two decades.

This article contends that “international law is a gendered system,” which

marginalizes women’s interests in a privileged, virtually men’s world.

4

Since

then, different feminist inquiries into international law have generated notable

achievements, especially in the protection of international human rights. However,

feminist discussion seems to occupy a niche area, as Charlesworth acknowledged,

so that the feminist debate may have yet attracted little engagement from the

international community.

5

She persuasively points out that masculinity has been

  

any “masculinist perspective on international law.”

6

Moreover, it is fairly regrettable

to note that “when women appear in the international sphere they are either playing

the male role like Margaret Thatcher or are the quintessential victim in need of male

protection.”

7

In other words, the key to feminist debate lies in the fact that women

1 In 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft had already advocated for the women’s right to be educated in her classic book, A

VindicAtion of the Rights of WomAn. Women’s suffrage movement prevailed throughout the nineteenth and early

twentieth centuries. N. Lacey, Feminist Legal Theory and the Rights of Women, in gendeR And humAn Rights 13-14

(K. Knop ed., 2004).

2 A. edWARds, Violence AgAinst Women: undeR inteRnAtionAl humAn Rights lAW 7 (2011).

3 H. Charlesworth, Christine Chinkin and Shelly Wright, Feminist Approaches to International Law, 85 Am. J. int’l l.

618-645 (1991).

4 Id. at 614-615.

5 H. Charlesworth, Talking to Ourselves: Should International Lawyers Take a break from Feminist? in feminist

PeRsPectiVes on contemPoRARy inteRnAtionAl lAW 17 (S. Kouyo & Z. Pearson eds., 2011).

6 H. Charlesworth, Feminist Ambivalence about International Law, 11 int’l legAl theoRy 1 (2005).

7 R. Saloom, A Feminist Inquiry into International Law and International Relations, 12 RogeR WilliAms u. l. ReV.

169 (2006). E.g., women are portrayed more or less as victims in number of international instrument including the