Murray, Christina; Wittke, Cindy --- "International institutions, constitution-making and gender" [2017] ELECD 838; in Irving, Helen (ed), "Constitutions and Gender" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 107

Book Title: Constitutions and Gender

Editor(s): Irving, Helen

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781784716950

Section: Chapter 4

Section Title: International institutions, constitution-making and gender

Author(s): Murray, Christina; Wittke, Cindy

Number of pages: 26

Abstract/Description:

Over the past 50 years the international community has become increasingly engaged with gender issues. The promotion of women’s rights and gender equality has become a normative framework for both the internal structures of international institutions and their external engagement internationally and domestically. More recently international institutions have become directly or indirectly involved in constitution-making and reform processes around the globe. The aim of this chapter is to explore how these two developments come together, that is, how gender issues are related to and brought into the programmes and activities of international institutions in constitution-making and -reform processes.The chapter starts by tracing the gradual development in the UN system of expertise in formulating procedural and material standards for constitution-making assistance and for assessing the gender responsiveness of constitutional documents. These explorations are complemented by the examination of the legal and policy framework within which the UN and UN institutions such as UNDP assist in constitution-making across the globe. The chapter then turns to the UN and its institutions’ actual implementation of their gender and constitution-making agendas, emphasizing that much depends on context and those involved. Section 4.4 provides a brief review of the engagement of some regional international institutions in gender-responsive constitution-making and the next section provides an introduction to the involvement of a wider range of intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in promoting gender-responsive constitution-making. The conclusion summarizes the chapter’s findings on the complex interconnections among international institutions, gender and constitution-making.