Our Vision
The Global Justice Center (GJC) is poised to be the catalyst for fundamentally altering the dominant global legal and political culture by targeting women and political rights in transitional democracies (and US policy). Global justice in the twenty-first century requires a powerful new definition of democracy: one recognizing that there is no "good governance" if the majority of the people in the world—i.e. women—are the "governed" but not the "governors." The Global Justice Center was founded with the vision of a cutting-edge nonprofit legal group transforming global political and legal cultures, starting with the very definitions of "democracy," "the rule of law," and "human rights." A democracy must rest on the presumption that women are equal partners in all decision-making bodies: governments; parliaments; cease-fires; peace-keeping forces; war crimes tribunals; security bodies; political parties; international and national non-governmental organizations; and judicial bodies.
The Vision of Global Justice Center
The vision of the Global Justice Center came about in the wake of 9/11 as the glaring absence of women from power in governments highlighted the centrality of women's subjugation in all of the growing and divisive fundamentalist ideologies. Something was needed to strategically address the global threats to human rights and the rule of law, including the rise of divisive fundamentalism threatening secular governments, and the continuing strength of racial and ethnic conflict resulting in genocide, displaced populations, and stateless states.
It became clear that a more secure and more just world requires that there exists a normative expectation that all national and international bodies that enforce rights and make laws, from the United Nations to national parliaments to peace-keeping forces, are one-half women.
Even though women comprise 51% of the world population, their absence in parliaments or in the judicial or executive branches of government is not viewed as a human rights violation under various assessments of country compliance with human rights standards. In fact, women's exclusion from government in countries across the globe is not only a violation of international law, but it goes against the very principle of representative government.
The Global Justice Center aims to change the face of "who governs" and promote gender equality at all levels of government, beginning with the enforcement of existing rights laws. Before the GJC, no institution in the world was singularly focused on training women leaders (who usually are not lawyers) in the use of hands-on, legal tools built on existing human rights laws to enforce the affirmative rights of women to political representation.
The GJC's aggressive, collaborative program is designed to go beyond what would be a laudable goal in itself—shaping stronger and more effective women leaders. It reverses the traditional model of studying the effects of public policies on women to one of leveraging women to be the active makers and enforcers of public policy and law. Moreover, promoting a new normative standard of what constitutes good governance bolsters the rule of law by enforcing the existing but ignored legal rights to gender parity.
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The Need for Global Justice Now
The need for the Global Justice Center is immediate. The "war on terror" is the starkest reminder that we live in a world of increasing conflict and decreasing political order. All wars devastate and destroy lives. How they are resolved, and what comes in their place, is critical for the future of constitutionalism, women's rights, and democracy. The premise of the GJC is that the imperative of global security follows from the rule of law and the political partnership of women as well as men.
In the last 15 years, over 30 new countries were formed, and this appears to be a continuing trend. In many other countries, new forms of government have replaced military dictatorships or repressive regimes, such as in Iraq and South Africa. As we speak, new constitutions are being drafted, new governments being formed, and new laws being passed. If these new structures and policies were truly based on the principle of equality of women, how would their decisions be different? Would the world be more secure if the legal and political culture was founded on the fact that women were decision-makers, not victims of others' decisions? The unstable situations and conflicts that imperil our world security at the same time provide the openings to radically restructure government institutions. It is critical that at times of transition we act quickly to promote enforceable human rights as the basis for a rule of law and equality of women in fact, not just de jure, as the sine qua non of democracy.
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How the Global Justice Center Will Change the World
Enforcement of Law
The Global Justice Center will focus on promoting legal tools enabling world leaders, activists, lawyers, and judges, to enforce laws and treaties which give women rights to political power, including affirmative steps such as legislative quotas. The GJC will be unique in taking key sections of the existing laws and finding creative ways for them to be tools in legislatures, policy reform campaigns, courts, media and in international forums such as the United Nations, international criminal courts, peace-keeping missions, ceasefire negotiations, and peace treaty processes.
This enforcement process itself is a "win-win" situation; it changes the discourse, creates global precedents, and provides strong tools for women and others who support the implementation of human rights. We know from experience that when women are given training, legal tools, and support, they take on leadership roles to carry out enforceable, but rarely implemented laws.
An example of such a law is CEDAW, the Convention on Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women, which is the second most widely signed human rights treaty in the world (Qatar being the newest signatory). One reason for acceptance is that countries do not view CEDAW as "political" but "just" a treaty for "women being treated better." Nations reason that they can ratify the treaty to obtain international legitimacy without having to change their basic (patriarchal) political and legal structures. This thinking is reminiscent of the U.S. Congress in the 1970's when the word "sex" was first blithely inserted into the Title VII law—who would have thought that it would subsequently be used to change the entire landscape of women's employment rights? CEDAW, too, is a law of amazing potential legal heft.
The political partnership rights guaranteed under such documents as CEDAW can be used to pressure for change in:
- The composition of legislatures, the judiciary, the executive branch, U.N. representatives and the military,
- The budget priorities (such as women's health and a well-funded cabinet level ministry of women's affairs),
- The language used in the media,
- The number of women at the table in peace-keeping or cease-fire talks,
- The number of women negotiating for a country with the World Bank,
- The legal arguments given to Judges,
- The jurisprudence of regional, national, and international bodies to affirm the binding nature of ratified international human rights treaties and its supremacy over old national laws,
- Affirmative action requirements and,
- The processes used by political parties to ensure growing gender equity and active recruitment of women.
Training Leaders and Reinforcing the Law
GJC staff conducts pilot trainings, publishes "idea sheets," and case studies and briefing papers, as well as drafts model Op-Ed pieces and helps to organize media appearances. The GJC works to identify women activists, leaders, judges, and policymakers who may attend specific training programs equipping them to take on key leadership roles in their respective regions. The GJC produces innovative research to help educate global leaders about women's rights within international agreements.
When trainings concern democracy building, whether they be on or with the military, government officials, women activists, political party leaders, or leaders from the private sector, they must reinforce that any present-day definition of democracy is one acknowledging that binding international law gives women the right to equality of political representation.
The GJC, by taking the leadership on this critical message, will have a trickle down effect on academic institutions, government trainings, conferences, and media. We seek to "mainstream" the radical idea of equality and affirmative action to ensure women are represented in parliaments and to study the legal tools to enforce international agreements such as U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325 on requiring women in all peace processes.
Women leaders, both in and out of government, are not usually lawyers or judges. However, the law is a critical, if not essential tool for ensuring that women are partners in all national and global decision-making bodies. Training women leaders in the law is imperative. The trainings themselves, however, lose effectiveness without follow-up and reinforcement. The GJC will make itself available to these women to serve as "in-house legal counsel." By serving as a legal advisor on international rights, including on United Nations actions, the GJC collaborates with women's groups and leaders on reports, litigation options, model legislation, and strategic alliances at conferences or meetings.
The GJC minimizes teaching theories of government; instead, our goal is to provide participants with cutting-edge, hands-on, creative legal tools, which address their central concerns, be it honor killings or legislative quotas for women, and which advance the political rights of women and enforcement of human rights globally. The GJC provides documented research that supports advocacy of these concerns in the media, the parliaments, or the courts, as well as model constitutions and agendas for training national judges on existing rights.
There is a major strategic gap in the trainings offered currently. While the UN or USAID has conducted limited law and democracy training, certain subjects are restricted in the trainings. For example, grantees of USAID funds may not mention or discuss abortion, nor do these trainings generally advocate aggressive new uses of CEDAW. The Global Justice Center is not bound by political or religious interests; instead it objectively seeks to provide women with all possible tools and ideas to protect and enforce equality rights.
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Why the Global Justice Center Really Works
In its first year in operation, the Global Justice Center has already demonstrated that enforcing women's right to equality is essential to increased global security and development. GJC projects are noticeably absent from other organizations' agendas. GJC programs—even with such low budgets—have generated projects in Burma, Thailand, and Iraq that have been met with enthusiastic responses from leaders such as Nobel Peace Prize Winner Aung San Sui Kyi, UN Appointed Expert on gender and conflict (and former Defense Minister of Finland) Elisabeth Rehn, and Iraqi Ambassador to the US, Samir Al-Sumaidie. After a presentation in Baghdad by GJC President Janet Benshoof in 2004, even the U.S. government, via USAID, added CEDAW to its democracy trainings in Iraq because women requested more information. The content of every program, along with the materials, is now widely distributed and have spawned translations, discussions, letters, law articles, and petitions to government groups and leaders.
Resulting from GJC work, lawyers and doctors in Burma now see how their restrictive abortion law is invalidated in part by international law. Women leaders from seven conflict areas meeting at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University have studied materials showing how other groups in similar situations have used CEDAW to successfully implement improved conditions for women in their countries. After a GJC pilot training with the Women's League of Burma, an umbrella group of 12 organizations, women members were able to identify the applicability of CEDAW to their situation. They felt that under CEDAW, they needed to be partners in all of the cease-fire negotiations and constitution drafting, both with the government of Myanmar and with their colleagues in the government-in-exile, all of whom were men. GJC is making a serious impact.
Women leaders in transitional democracies or conflict areas are asking for help from the global community in how to use international legal tools to enforce their rights to political power and inclusion in governments, including such critical activities as constitution-drafting. They want to know how other women have managed to get political rights. The GJC is pioneering models that women across cultures can use to guarantee their right to self-determination and control over the policies that affect their lives. This right is a universal human right that is not specific to geographic location, or religious or cultural background.
The GJC seeks to change the current dynamic that focuses on women as victims to one that focuses on empowering women by enforcing existing human rights treaty guarantees. In doing so, the GJC is building a permanent structure for promoting justice for women. The value of this endeavor to the world is immeasurable. Its impact will expand exponentially as the number of trained, influential women leaders and their male collaborators increases, changing the global legal and political culture.
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- [1] The changing political landscape includes moves towards carving out new nation-states by ethnic or religious minorities, moves usually detrimental for women's rights. For example, the Basque vote in Spain was described as an example of separation movements around the world. (Wall Street Journal Friday April 15, 2005 Vol. CCXLV No. 74 Page A8.), (although there exist ones far closer to being achieved in reality). Cite.