Gender Justice and Lived Legal Pluralism: Advancing Equity through Human Rights Instruments.
Presented by Inter Gentes in collaboration with the CHRLP.听 .听The role of legal pluralism in advancing gender equality through (international) human rights instruments.听 With聽Meghan Campbell, Geoffrey Swenson, Palwasha L. Kakar.听 Hosts: Poonam Sandhu and Kassandra Neranjan.听
Inter Gentes is a journal that has two guiding objectives: rethinking international law through the lens of legal pluralism and creating a global, twenty-first century academic journal. The journal centers around engaging forums to discuss and debate articles between numerous legal professionals, scholars, students, and the general public. Hosting a conversation on International Women鈥檚 Day provides Inter Gentes the unique forum to marry conversations of legal pluralism with that of gender equity. More specifically, human rights instruments and endeavours to produce positivist international law have been lauded and undertaken with a magnanimous conviction that such efforts are essential to advancing gender justice; but does this hold, in truth? We aim to engage activists, scholars, and practitioners in a dialogue regarding legal pluralism in a dynamic setting of international law to explore: what are the multiple ways in which gender justice can and should be advocated for globally? What can we learn for future initiatives?
About the speakers
Dr. Meghan Campbell:聽Dr. Campbell is Reader in International Human Rights Law at the University of Birmingham. Her research explores聽how the international human rights system can best respond to gender inequality and poverty. Her monograph聽Women, Poverty,聽Equality聽(Hart Publishing, 2018) explores how the concept of equality in the UN Convention on the Discrimination on the Elimination of聽All Forms of Discrimination Against Women can be interpreted to address gender-based poverty. She has published peer-reviewed聽articles on gender equality, human rights, international legal system and public law and provided written evidence to the Joint聽Committee on Human Rights and Women and Equalities Committee on Brexit and human rights.听
Dr. Geoffrey Swenson:聽Dr. Geoffrey Swenson is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in International Relations in the Department of International Politics at City, University of聽London. He is also a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and an External Affiliate with the Ostrom Workshop at the University of Indiana,聽Bloomington.听聽Geoffrey's current research focuses on issues related to post-conflict reconstruction, democracy and the rule of law, legal pluralism,聽international institutions, international relations theory, and foreign aid.听Geoffrey has held fellowships at the London School of Economics, Stanford聽University, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Previously, he was an in-country program manager for the Asia Foundation in Timor-Leste and Nepal, the founder and in-country director of Stanford Law School's Timor-Leste Legal Education Project, and a global political party聽development specialist with the National Democratic Institute.听Geoffrey completed a DPhil in International Relations at Oxford as a Clarendon Scholar聽and won the Bapsybanoo Marchioness of Winchester Prize for most outstanding thesis. He holds an MA in Comparative Ethnic Conflict from Queen's聽University Belfast as a Mitchell Scholar, and a JD from Stanford Law School.听 Geoffrey's research has been published in leading journals including International Security, World Development, International Studies Review, and the聽Columbia Human Rights Law Review.
Palwasha L. Kakar:聽Palwasha L. Kakar is the interim director for religion and inclusive societies at the U.S. Institute of Peace聽(USIP). Kakar joined USIP after four years with The Asia Foundation where she was the Afghanistan director聽for Women鈥檚 Empowerment and Development. Prior to joining the Foundation, Kakar led the Gender聽Mainstreaming and Civil Society Unit in the United Nation Development Program's Afghanistan Subnational聽Governance Program managing a small grants program for Afghanistan's civil society initiatives. Kakar also聽served as program manager for The Gender Studies Institute at Kabul University. She has experience working聽with the World Bank Group on gender, social justice and environmental issues surrounding their various聽projects in the region. Kakar moved to Afghanistan 2004 to work with the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU), an聽independent research organization, on women's participation at the local levels in the National Solidarity聽Programme (NSP). Before moving to Afghanistan, she was the director of the Newton Peace Center (currently聽Peace Connections) a faith-based civil society organization.
An Afghan-American, she has experience teaching and researching religion, gender, security and local聽governance. Kakar has published research regarding women鈥檚 participation in local governance, Pashtunwali-Afghan customary law, Afghan women's identity, and social spaces in Afghanistan. Her research has taken聽her to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Israel, Palestine, Jordan and Syria.听She earned a master's focusing on gender, politics and religion from Harvard University鈥檚 Divinity School and聽a bachelor's in religion and global studies focusing on peace and conflict from Bethel College in North聽Newton, KS.
