Talking to Ourselves? Feminist Scholarship in International Law

Abstract

Feminist scholarship in international law has generated debate between feminists, but little engagement from the disciplinary main-stream. This chapter addresses one strand of the internal debate, Janet Halley's argument that feminism has come to exercise considerable powerin international law and its institutions; and that it does so with little self-reflection, indeed denying its own influence by asserting an inauthentic under-dog status. After describing the place of feminist theorising in international law, and then Halley's critique, the chapter considers feminist scholarship and its oscillation between resistance to and compliance with international law in the context of state-building and democratisation. It argues that feminists have been successful in bringing the language of women?s empowerment into international law but less adept at identifying methods to give this language life on the ground