Women And Children: The Cutting Edge Of International Law
Dr Radhika Coomaraswamy
Sometime at the end of 2011, while I was still the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict, I met an ambassador from an Asian country just before a United Nations Security Council meeting on children and armed conflict. He told me that I was leaving the United Nations at the right time. "The era of Human rights is over, IT has been shown up for what IT is, a Product of western liberalism and foreign Policy Now a Modern Day Weapon of western imperialism" [2]
A FEW months earlier I was in the Central African Republic (CAR) with Three Generations of Women From a family who had been brutally raped by the forces of Jean Pierre Bemba CAR From the Democratic Republic of Congo When he entered in 2002. [3] They were getting ready to go to The Hague to testify against him. They described the events in detail and I could feel their sense of vindication and hope. Even if Bemba was not convicted, they found consolation in the fact that someone recognized the crimes committed against them.
This is then the complexity of human rights in the modern world. Increasingly member states, along with individuals and groups in the global south, challenge both the epistemology and practice of human rights. But despite their efforts, at the grass root level there is a groundswell of support for the idea of human rights, including women's and children's rights, as more and more groups begin mobilizing using the discourse and strategy of the human rights movement to fight for equality and social justice.
Introduction
In the traditional world of International Law, issues of peace and Security have always taken precedence over OTHER Developments War. [4] The Westphalian origins led to a Focus On International Dispute resolution and an order that will enable the establishment of peace. Even today the media attention of the world remains on the Security Council whose proceedings dominate the discussion of international law and international relations.
However hidden from view away from the drama of the use of force and international peace and security, there has been a quiet, creeping revolution in the area of women's and children's rights at the international level which may have far reaching consequences on how we think about international law and its place in the modern world.
I have divided this lecture into three parts: - Read More
Dr Radhika Coomaraswamy
