International Law Blog Postings

University Club of Denver, Thursday, 24 February 2005

Dressed entirely in black and wearing a black hijab, Nancy Rubin, the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (1997-2000), began her talk on the status of the world's women with a rather bleak overview of a global landscape which still marginalizes half the world's population. Standing against a backdrop of oak wood paneling and insignias of ivy league universities, she spoke of the global need for better access to education, health care "and all its aspects", and decision-making. Without access and control, she asserts, the world's women will continue to be vulnerable to violence, insecurity, poverty, and social abuse.

In addition to pointing out that women make up 2/3 of the world's illiterate adults, she recapped this frequently seen example of a world in a village (abbreviated here):

If the earth's population was shrunk into a village of 
just 100 people with all the human ratios existing in 
the world still remaining:
  6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth.
  80 would live in substandard housing.
  70 would be unable to read.
  1 would have a college education.
  1 would own a computer.

The majority of her talk featured vignettes from her global experiences punctuated by recommendations to facilitate development and to improve the conditions for women around the world. I have summarized and grouped them here by intended audience:

Decision-makers/Policy-makers

• Strengthen international institutions, such as the United Nations
• Promote labor standards in international trade packages
• Enhance the relationship between gender and development
• Provide more aid for development
• Increase the participation of women in decision-making

NGOS

• Foster broad coalitions of activists
• Support human rights defenders
• Advocate for policy change at all levels
• Educate women about their rights
• Educate law enforcement about women's rights and issues
• Educate the judicial system about women's rights and issues
• Promote women's rights to the media
• Advocate for incentives for good governance

Advocates

• Lobby representatives
• Promote the formation of "councils of democracy"
• Increase education of women
• Improve the health of women
• Decrease violence against women
• Work to eradicate extreme poverty

Media

• Provide "rapid and accurate" reporting on women's issues

Additional Resources (United Nations):

• UNHCR Women's Rights
• UN Inter-agency Network on Women Equality
• Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women (1993)
• Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979)

Additional Resources (NGOs):

• Amnesty International - Stop Violence Against Women
• Human Rights Watch - Women's Rights Division
• International Women's Rights Action Watch
• Women in Development Europe (English, Spanish)

Additional Resources (Legal):

• International Women's Human Rights Law Clinic
• Women in Law and Development in Africa
• Karamah: Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights