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International Law, Social Change and Resistance: A Conversation Between Professor Anna Grear (Cardiff) and Professorial Fellow Dianne Otto (Melbourne)

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Abstract

This conversation between two scholars of international law focuses on the contemporary realities of feminist analysis of international law and on current and future spaces of resistance. It notes that feminism has moved from the margin towards the centre, but that this has also come at a cost. As the language of women’s rights and gender equality has travelled into the international policy worlds of crisis management and peace and security, feminist scholars need to become more careful in their analysis and find new ways of resistance. While noting that we live in dangerous times, this is also a hopeful discussion.

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Notes

  1. WILPF Statement to the Conference on Disarmament on International Women's Day 2015, available at http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/news/latest-news/9559-wilpf-statement-to-the-conference-on-disarmament-on-international-women-s-day-2015 (date of last access: 20th October 2018).

  2. Post-2015 Women’s Coalition (since renamed Feminist Alliance for Rights), working to challenge and reframe the global development agenda, Feminist Sustainable Development: A Transformative Alternative for Gender Equality, Development and Peace adopted in 2015. http://peacewomen.org/sites/default/files/Post2015WomensCoalitionVisionStatement_FINAL.pdf (date of last access: 20th October 2018).

  3. Necropolitics refers to the ultimate expression of sovereignty lying in the state’s ability to determine who may live and who may die.

  4. For further resources, see the ‘Reimagine the Future’ project and film, available at http://gnhre.org/reimagine/ (date of last access: 19th October 2018).

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Otto, D., Grear, A. International Law, Social Change and Resistance: A Conversation Between Professor Anna Grear (Cardiff) and Professorial Fellow Dianne Otto (Melbourne). Fem Leg Stud 26, 351–363 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10691-018-9393-0

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