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A digest of case law on the human rights of women (Asia Pacific)

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This digest is a collection of judicial verdicts on women’s rights claims from the Asia Pacific. It illustrates the contentious issues, complex barriers, and the commonalities in women’s rights activism across the diversity of the region. In doing so, it reflects judicial treatment of women’s rights claims and the disparate successes with the law, thereby taking stock of the achievements and challenges of the region. Law has been a significant site of women’s rights struggles. The wide ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women [CEDAW] in the region, particularly after the World Conference on Women in Beijing, 1995, has considerably strengthened the claims for justiciability of women’s rights. The increasing reliance upon CEDAW by women’s rights activists to firstly, challenge
discrimination in law and secondly, to expand narrow judicial interpretation of national laws is evidence of the Convention’s growing importance. While it may be too premature to definitively comment on whether or not this has actually enabled better results, it is clear that the ratification of CEDAW has lent legitimacy and moral force to feminist engagement with the law in many national contexts. The court room in the last decade has been an arena where many of these struggles, developments and politics have been played out - it is visible in the increasing reliance on international law, universal standards, in the terminology used and the formulation of the claims. It is equally evident in the judicial responses to them - regardless of the upholding of or rejection of the claims. The litigation being pursued to advance women’s rights from the Asia Pacific are not adequately documented, reported or available for making linkages in women’s activism regionally. This vacuum formed the core need for this project. In our work,
particularly the regional trainings of APWLD on ‘Feminist Legal Theory and Practice’, it was a struggle to source information on litigation strategies and case law from the countries of this region. One often heard from the participants in the trainings and the national NGOs about examples from their countries, but these remained unverified, undocumented and therefore difficult to retrieve and share for wider usage. Instead, it was easier to rely upon ‘international case law’ that is well documented and therefore well known; inadvertently reinforcing the notion that there were no significant legal challenges from Asia Pacific. This digest endeavors to fill this gap by consolidating a decade of women’s rights cases from the region, from 1990 to 2000.

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Availability

KP.1 000208	KP.1 FOR d	My Library	Available
KP.1.000208-01	KP.1 FOR d	My Library	Available
BK02961PerpusKP	INT VII 40 APW d	My Library	Available

Detail Information

Series Title

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Call Number

KP.1 FOR d

Publisher

Chiangmai : Asia Pacific Forum on Women., 2003

Collation

122p. ; 24 cm.

Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

9748545687

Classification

KP.1

Content Type

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Media Type

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Carrier Type

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Edition

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Subject(s)

Hak asasi manusia
Hak asasi perempuan

Specific Detail Info

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Statement of Responsibility

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