International human rights regime, neoliberalism, and women’s social rights, 1984–2004

2011 ◽  
Vol 52 (6) ◽  
pp. 503-528 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eunhye Yoo
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Global Culture ◽  
World Polity ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Neoliberal Restructuring

World polity scholars posit that the diffusion of world culture and norms increasingly influences human rights as well as women’s rights. However, previous research on women’s rights and policies often neglects women’s social rights and focuses mainly on women’s political rights. In part due to neoliberal restructuring, women’s social rights still lag behind women’s political rights. This research focuses on changes in women’s social rights, as measured by the CIRI human rights index, in 140 countries from 1984 to 2004. To interpret these data, I incorporate world institutionalism and neoliberalism into one single theoretical frame. My analysis reveals that the longer a country is exposed to a neoliberal structural adjustment program, the more governments’ practices regarding women’s social rights deteriorate. Among various linkages to the world polity, only the ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) increases nation-states’ likelihood of having improved women’s social rights. These findings suggest that global neoliberal restructuring has a deleterious effect on women’s social rights and challenge the claim that the spread of global culture necessarily leads to improvements in governments’ practices relating to women’s social rights.

scholarly journals ISLĀTTIL PEṆKAḶIṈ URIMAIKAḶ: ORU KŌṬPĀṬṬU RĪTIYILĀṈA PĀRVAI [WOMEN’S RIGHTS IN ISLAM: A THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE]

2021 ◽  
pp. 84-99
Author(s):  
M.M.A. ABDULLAH
Keyword(s):  
Women's Rights ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Internet Information ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Economic

The Spiritual, political, economic, and social rights of women are discussed at various levels. However, violence and oppression against women continue to increase. The charisma of Islam on women's rights is very strong. Thus, the study aimed at examining the concept of Islam in respect of women with the help of its primary sources, Holy Quran, and al-Hadith. Based on the review of the earlier literatures, the study was conducted with the analysis of the research articles, books and internet information on feminism along with information on the spiritual, social, economic and political rights of women found in the primary sources of Islam, classical Islamic literatures and the written works of modern Muslim scholars. The major finding of this study is that although the primary sources of Islam have a history of more than 1400 years, Islam has given proper guidelines for the complete guarantee of women's rights in the modern world and women have enjoyed them in the early Muslim community. This study will be a supportive to future studies based on the concept of Islam on women.

Women's Rights, Human Rights and Domestic Violence in Vanuatu

1996 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 169-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Jolly
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Cultural Relativism ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Recent Debate ◽  
The Individual

There has been much recent debate about women's rights and their relation to human rights. Debates about domestic violence in Vanuatu are situated in this global frame but also in a regional and historical context dominated by the relation between kastom (tradition) and Christianity. This article depicts the dynamics of a conference on Violence and the Family in Vanuatu held in Port Vila in 1994, in terms of the competing claims of universal human rights and cultural relativism. The allegedly western character of human rights which focus on the individual and civil and political rights is often contrasted with the non-western stress on collectivities and the rights to economic development and self-determination. These sorts of ideological oppositions in international politics reverberate in domestic politics as well, and especially in those which situate women and men as subjects in conflict, as they are in many domestic disputes.

scholarly journals Cross-country analysis of correlation between protection of women’s economic and social rights, health improvement and sustainabledevelopment

BMJ Open ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. e021350
Author(s):  
Kamiar Alaei ◽  
Sedef Akgüngör ◽  
Weng-Fong Chao ◽  
Sayyida Hasan ◽  
Allyson Marshall ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cluster Analysis ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Health Outcomes ◽  
Human Development ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Health Improvement ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
Country Analysis ◽  
Cross Country

ObjectiveThe goal of this study is to assess the correlation between protection of women’s economic and social rights (WESR), health improvement and sustainable development.MethodsA cross-country analysis of 162 countries was employed to assess development, health and human rights of the countries by measuring associated variables. Data sets for the health, human rights and economic and social rights of these countries were from 2004 to 2010. The dependent variables are health and human development and the independent variables are the human rights variables. Regression analysis and principle axis factoring were used for extraction and varimax method for rotation. Country grouping was made using cluster analysis. Potential biases, resulting from measurement differences in human rights values, were eliminated by using z-transformation to standardise variables.ResultsRegression results reveal that WESR variable is correlated with the health outcomes. Cluster analysis separated the countries into three clusters, based on the WESR variable. Countries where WESR were ‘highly respected’ (44 countries) are categorised into cluster 1; countries where WESR were ‘moderately respected’ (51 countries) are categorised into cluster 2 and countries where WESR were ‘poorly respected’ (63 countries) are categorised into cluster 3. Countries were then compared in their respective clusters based on health and human development variables. It was found that the countries which ‘highly respected’ WESR had better average health values compared with the second and third clusters. Our findings demonstrate that countries with a strong women’s rights status ultimately had better health outcomes.ConclusionWESR status has correlation with the health and human development. When women’s rights are highly respected, the nation is more likely to have higher health averages and accelerated development.

Authoritarian Institutions and Women’s Rights

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (5) ◽  
pp. 720-753 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniela Donno ◽  
Anne-Kathrin Kreft
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Coalition Building ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Authoritarian Institutions

While dictatorships perform worse than democracies in respect for most human rights, a large number of autocracies have prioritized the advancement of women’s rights. We present a theory of authoritarian rights provision that focuses on the incentives for dictatorships to secure women’s loyalty, and we identify the particular capacity of institutionalized party-based regimes to supply—and capitalize from—women’s rights policies. Analyzing a comprehensive sample of authoritarian regimes from 1963 to 2009, we find that party-based regimes are associated with greater economic and political rights for women irrespective of whether they hold multiparty elections. A comparative exploration of authoritarian Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya sheds further light on these findings and examines alternative explanations. Our account of women’s rights as a tool of autocratic party coalition-building contrasts with the provision of civil and associational rights—so-called “coordination goods”—which represents a concession to the opposition and tends to accompany liberalization.

Women’s Rights as Human Rights

2019 ◽  
pp. 57-99
Author(s):  
Margaret A. McLaren
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Gender Violence ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
Economic Rights ◽  
Human Rights Movement ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Complex Relationships ◽  
Comprehensive Framework

This chapter assesses the human rights framework as a paradigm for global gender justice. First, it examines the gains made by the “women’s rights as human rights” movement; this movement brought issues of sexual and gender violence under the purview of human rights. Next, the chapter argues for the importance of economic and social rights, and supports the indivisibility of legal, political, social, and economic rights. However, some postcolonial feminists challenge the rights framework’s claim to universality, and care ethicists criticize its strong individualism. The chapter proposes that a feminist social justice approach provides a more comprehensive framework for negotiating the complex relationships among gender, class, religious, and racial and ethnic identities and oppression than a human rights framework.

Reformist Islam and Women’s Rights

2020 ◽  
pp. 273-304
Author(s):  
Mohsen Kadivar
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Women's Issues ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
Women In Islam ◽  
Traditional Islam

This chapter critically analyses the challenges of traditional Islam in addressing the notion of human rights as it relates to women’s issues, and provides a solution using Quranic teachings. It starts with requirement of justice in women’s rights, and continues with the evolution of the approach of human reason in the arena of women’s rights and factors in the development of women’s rights. The chapter compares two different perspectives on women in Islamic texts: one view is more Qur’anic: woman is a different kind of human but she stands alongside man. No inferior characteristics are seen in this first view. The second view is more a view from the standpoint of fiqh. This viewpoint paints an inferior, a second-class person, vulnerable and needy picture of women who need the protection of men. The chapter addresses some of these rulings that consider women as an inferior creature, in three brief sections: Women’s Civil Rights, Women’s Criminal Law, and Women’s Political Rights. The chapter ends with the discussion of conditions for permanent Shari‘a rulings. Immoral, unjust, unreasonable or less functional rulings related to women in Islam cannot be accepted as a shari‘a ruling or an Islamic teaching.

scholarly journals Equality and Nondiscrimination Through the Eyes of an International Religious Organization: The Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s (OIC) Response to Women’s Rights

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert C. Blitt
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Family Values ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Intergovernmental Organization ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Human Rights Norms ◽  
The Right

This article is the first of a two part series that draws on women‘s rights and sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) to explore how the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) represents, interprets and seeks to impact the right to equality and protection against discrimination as enshrined under international human rights law. The study is a novel one inasmuch as the OIC is neither a state nor a religious group per se. Rather, the OIC stands out as the only contemporary intergovernmental organization unifying its member states around the commonality of a single religion. In this capacity, the organization maintains no direct obligations or rights under key instruments such as the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR) or the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).Nevertheless, as part of its mandate representing 57 predominantly Muslim states, the OIC has increasingly asserted a role for itself on the international stage as "the collective voice of the Muslim world." This new assertiveness is particularly evident in the context of debates surrounding the content of human rights norms in international fora such as the United Nations, where the OIC has sought to develop common policy positions and encourage its members to vote as a bloc on issues of concern. Against this backdrop, the article concludes that supporters of universal human rights norms need to better understand how the OIC‘s mission to "protect and defend the true image of Islam" may impact international debates over the substance of equality and nondiscrimination norms, and develop appropriate responses to these efforts as a means to ensure that universality is not undermined.This article begins with a brief introduction to the OIC, and proceeds to explore its relationship with the principles of equality and nondiscrimination by examining its founding document and other relevant primary sources. With this understanding in place, the paper turns to examine the OIC‘s contemporary handling of these principles as manifested in debates surrounding women‘s rights as well as the relevance and impact of "Islamic family values" on the scope of those rights. This article‘s exploration of "family values" also serves as a pivot point to begin framing rights issues related to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex (LGBTI) individuals and related SOGI issues. Throughout this examination, the role of the OIC‘s newly established Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission (IPHRC) is considered as a means of appraising whether a shift in the OIC‘s position may be forthcoming.

Islam, Gender, and Democracy in Comparative Perspective

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Comparative Literature ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Muslim Countries ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Shed Light

This volume reframes the debate around Islam and women’s rights within a broader comparative literature. It examines the complex and contingent historical relationships between religion, secularism, democracy, law, and gender equality. Part I addresses the nexus of religion, law, gender, and democracy through different disciplinary perspectives (sociology, anthropology, political science, law). Part II localizes the implementation of this nexus between law, gender, and democracy, and provides contextualized responses to questions raised in Part I. The contributors explore the situation of Muslim women’s rights vis-à-vis human rights to shed light on gender politics in the modernization of the nation and to ponder over the role of Islam in gender inequality across different Muslim countries.

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