Gender and Rules of Procedure in Constituent Processes: A Comparative Discussion in Support of the Chilean Constitutional Convention

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin C. Houlihan

On 6 August 2021 International IDEA, in partnership with the Law Faculty of UniversidadAdolfo Ibáñez, Corporación Humanas and ComunidadMujer, held a virtual seminar on gender and rules of procedure in constituent processes. Its objective was to share comparative information about designing rules of procedure (regulations) for constituent processes from a gender-equality perspective with members of the newly constituted Chilean Constitutional Convention, Chilean civil society, academics and legal practitioners. The open-invitation online event brought together a panel of women constitution-makers from constituent processes in Bolivia, Kenya, South Africa and Tunisia. The experts discussed their respective experiences and the benefits and drawbacks of the rules of procedure that guided their constituent processes. Representatives from the implementing partners moderated expert panel sessions and question-and-answer discussions.

Author(s):  
Retselisitsoe Phooko

On 2 August 2002 South Africa signed the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Protocol on Tribunal and the Rules of Procedure Thereof, thus effectively recognising and accepting the jurisdiction of the SADC Tribunal. Among the cases received by the SADC Tribunal was a complaint involving allegations of human rights violations by the government of Zimbabwe. It ruled that the government of Zimbabwe had violated human rights. Consequently, Zimbabwe mounted a politico-legal challenge against the existence of the Tribunal. This resulted in the review of the role and functions of the Tribunal in 2011 which resulted in the Tribunal being barred from receiving new cases or proceeding with the cases that were already before it. Furthermore, on 18 August 2014, the SADC Summit adopted and signed the 2014 Protocol on the Tribunal in the SADC which disturbingly limits personal jurisdiction by denying individual access to the envisaged Tribunal, thus reducing it to an inter-state judicial forum. This article critically looks at the decision of 18 August 2014, specifically the legal implications of the Republic of South Africa’s signing of the 2014 Protocol outside the permissible procedure contained in article 37 of the SADC Protocol on the Tribunal. It proposes that South Africa should correct this democratic deficit by introducing public participation in treaty-making processes in order to prevent a future situation where the executive unilaterally withdraws from an international treaty that is meant to protect human rights at a regional level. To achieve this, this article makes a comparative study between South Africa and the Kingdom of Thailand to learn of any best practices from the latter.


2020 ◽  
pp. 135050682097915
Author(s):  
Zuzana Maďarová ◽  
Veronika Valkovičová

Thirty years after the Velvet Revolution, Slovak feminist activists look back to the 1990s and early 2000s as the time of exceptional capacity building and knowledge production which was barely sustained in later years. The last decade of feminist organizing has been marked by waning financial resources for civil society organizations, and appropriation of feminist and gender equality agenda by the state, which led to the hollowing out of its content. What is more, strong and pervasive conservative pressure with the aid of ‘gender ideology’ rhetoric has been successful in delegitimizing gender equality policies and is consistently threatening sexual and reproductive rights in the country. Facing such prospects, this article examines newfound alliances and diverse forms of broadly understood feminist praxis, which go beyond institutionalized civil society, but have developed to counter neoconservative and far-right political pressure in Slovakia.


Author(s):  
Simon Motshweni

The aim of this paper is to interrogate the post-1994 feminist approaches to jurisprudential discourse. This interrogation will include a consideration as to whether critical instead of ‘traditional’ feminist theories contribute in transforming or decolonising South African law and jurisprudence. It is my suggestion that the inquiry to address ‘gender equality’ before and without addressing issues of racism and racial classism simultaneously in South Africa contributes effectively to the continued marginalisation of black women. As such, my position attempts to engage with the critical feminist approaches in order to address the prejudices that traditional feminist approaches impose on black women. The focal theoretical point of departure for this interrogation is critical race feminism.2 Critical race feminism proposes a progressive initiative for addressing the inconsistencies embodied within the traditional feminist approaches and is thus suitable for the South African post-apartheid context as it may trigger ‘transformative possibilities’.3 It is my contention that in order to address the marginalisation of black women, the traditional feminist approaches (such as the dominant feminist approaches) must be done away with for they are a hindrance to legal reform, as they prejudice the very structure they claim to protect.


2021 ◽  

On the 30th anniversary of the dissolution of the USSR, this book collects selected contributions which analyse patterns of stability and transformation that characterise the politics and societies of three Central Asian countries—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan—along with those of Central Asia as a region. In particular, this edited volume investigates gender equality discourses in Uzbekistan, the electoral rights of people with disabilities in Kyrgyzstan, neo-realism in the regional context of Central Asia, the role of Islam in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan as a provider of international security as well as the EU’s support of civil society and social capital in Kazakhstan. With contributions by Nora Becker, Dr. Shalva Dzebisashvili, Aziz Elmuradov, Prof. Dr. Matthias Kortmann, Dr. Aliia Maralbaeva, Laura Karoline Nette, Dr. Chiara Pierobon and Dr. Steve Schlegel.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document