Amy Barrow

UN Security Council Resolutions 1325 and 1820: Constructing Gender in Armed Conflict and International Humanitarian Law

While the Geneva Conventions contain gender-specific provisions, the reality of womens and mens experiences of armed conflict have highlighted gender limitations and conceptual constraints within international humanitarian law. Judgements at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) ad hoc tribunals have gone some way towards expanding the scope of definitions of sexual violence and rape in conflict. More recent developments in public international law, including the adoption of Security Council Resolutions 1325 and 1820 focused on women, peace and security, have sought to increase the visibility of gender in situations of armed conflict. This paper highlights important developing norms on women, peace and security. Although these norms are significant, they may not be radical enough to expand constructions of gender within international humanitarian law. This leaves existing provisions open to continued scrutiny.

'[It’s] Like a Rubber Band’: Assessing UNSCR 1325 as a Gender Mainstreaming Process

The principal aim of gender mainstreaming is to achieve gender equality by implementing gender as a central component at all levels within the UN system. Previous work has focused on gender mainstreaming as an abstract concept, whereas this paper empirically examines efforts to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325) and by doing so evaluates the process of mainstreaming.This paper suggests that gender mainstreaming has limited potential to achieve gender empowerment and equality. A lack of benchmarks and targets within UNSCR 1325 undermines the Security Council’s commitment to women’s experiences of armed conflict. Gender mainstreaming has largely not been implemented at a macro-level (within the UN), although at a micro-level, civil society organisations have made some attempts to use UNSCR 1325 to achieve gender empowerment. Ultimately, however, UNSCR 1325 is not radical enough to be used as a transformative gender mainstreaming tool.