Contesting women's rights: Charting the emergence of a transnational conservative counter-network

Global Society

Volumn 20, Issue 4, 2006, Pages 491-520

  Chappell, Louise ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

HUMAN RIGHTS; SOCIAL MOVEMENT; WOMENS STATUS;

EID: 33750507277     PISSN: 13600826     EISSN: 1469798X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13600820600929853     Document Type: Article

References (219)

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4. See Jane H. Bayes and Nayereh Tohidi (eds.), Globalization, Gender and Religion: The Politics of Women's Rights in Catholic and Muslim Countries (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001).
5. Samuel Huntington, "The Clash of Civilisations", Foreign Affairs, Vol. 72, No. 3 (1993), pp. 22-49.
6. Sidney Tarrow, "Transnational Politics: Contention and Institutions in International Politics", Annual Review of Political Science, Vol. 4 (2001), pp. 1-20;
7. Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998);
8. Doug McAdam, John D. McCarthy and Meyer N. Zald, Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures and Cultural Frames (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
9. See Mayer N. Zald and Bert Useem, "Movement and Counter-movement Interaction: Mobilization, Tactics and State Involvement", in Mayer N. Zald and John D. McCarthy (eds.), Social Movements in an Organizational Society: Collected Essays (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1987) pp. 247-271;
10. David Meyer and Suzanne Staggenborg, "Movements, Counter-movements and the Structure of Political Opportunity", American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 101, No. 6 (1996), pp. 1628-1660;
11. Aaron M. McCright and Riley E. Dunlap, "Defeating Kyoto: The Conservative Movement's Impact on U.S. Climate Change Policy", Social Problems, Vol. 50, No. 3 (2003), pp. 348-373.
12. See Valentine M. Moghadam, Globalizing Women: Transnational Feminist Networks (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005);
13. Nuket Kardam, "The Emerging Global Gender Equality Regime from Neoliberal and Constructivist Perspectives in International Relations", International Feminist Journal of Politics, Vol. 6, No. 1 (2004), pp. 85-109;
14. Elisabeth Jay Friedman, "Gendering the Agenda: The Impact of the Transnational Women's Rights Movement at the UN Conferences of the 1990s", Women's Studies International Forum, Vol. 26, No. 4 (2003), pp. 313-331;
15. Jutta Joachim "Framing and Seizing Opportunities: The UN, NGOs, and Women's Rights", International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 47 (2003), pp. 247-274;
16. Bunch et al., op. cit.;
17. Lois West, "The United Nations Women's Conferences and Feminist Politics", in Mary K. Meyer and Elisabeth Prugl (eds.), Gender and Politics in Global Governance (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999)
18. Keck and Sikkink, op. cit.
19. Martha Alter Chen, "Engendering World Conferences: The International Women's Movement and the UN", in T.G.Weisse and L. Gordenker (eds.), NGOs, the UN and Global Governances (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1996), pp. 139-155.
20. Friedman, op. cit.
21. Bayes and Tohidi (eds.), op. cit.
22. Doris Buss and Didi Herman, Globalizing Family Values: The Christian Right in International Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003).
23. Palena R. Neale, "The Bodies of Christ as International Bodies: The Holy See,Wom(b)an and the Cairo Conference", Review of International Studies, Vol. 24 (1998), pp. 101-118.
24. Doris Buss, "Robes, Relics and Rights: The Vatican and the Beijing Conference on Women", Social and Legal Studies, Vol. 7, No. 3 (1998), pp. 339-363.
25. Buss and Herman, op. cit.
26. Ibid., p. xviii.
27. The NGO conference sponsored by the United Nations, which ran parallel to the Beijing Conference, was attended by over 30,000 people, while 3,000 gained official accreditation to attend the FWCW. Friedman, op. cit., p. 313.
28. Kardam, op. cit., p. 94.
29. The Holy See (a non-member state) has permanent observer status in the United Nations. Its status has been recently challenged by a coalition of women's religious and reproductive rights NGOs known as Seechange, which has petitioned the United Nations to remove the special status of the Church. In its view, the status gives the Holy See an unfair advantage compared to other NGOs and religions groups, enabling it to benefit from the consensus voting system of the United Nations and exert a degree of influence far beyond its authority. Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC) "International Campaign Calls in to Question Vatican's Seat at UN", Press Release (1999), available: www.cath4choice/ nobandwidth/English/new/pressrelease/internationalcampa. (accessed 2 February 2004).
30. United Nations, Report of the International Conference on Population and Development: Programme of Action, UN Document No. A/Conf.171/13 (New York: UN Department of Public Information, 1994).
31. United Nations, Platform for Action, Fourth World Conference on Women, UN Document No. A/CONF.177/20 (New York: UN Department of Public Information, 1995).
32. See Buss, op. cit., p. 342.
33. Soft international law refers to non-legally binding instruments that nevertheless create expectations about future action. Hard law relates to binding legal obligations on states, such as international treaties. Hilary Charlesworth and Christine Chinkin, The Boundaries of International Law: A Feminist Analysis (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), p. 66. In relation to women's rights, soft law has been developed through the documents to emerge from the international women's conferences. Examples of hard law are the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
34. Tarrow, "Transnational Politics", op. cit.
35. Ibid., p. 10.
36. Ibid., p. 11.
37. Ibid., p. 12.
38. Keck and Sikkink, op. cit.
39. Ibid., p. 2.
40. Dieter Rucht, "The Transnationalization of Social Movements: Trends, Causes, Problems", in Donatella della Porta, Hanspeter Kriesi and Dieter Rucht (eds.), Social Movements in a Globalzing World (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999), pp. 210, 212.
41. Tarrow, "Transnational Politics", op. cit., p. 13.
42. Keck and Sikkink, op. cit., p. 9.
43. Tarrow, "Transnational Politics", op. cit., p. 13.
44. Ibid., p. 10.
45. Zald and Useem, op. cit.
46. Meyer and Staggenborg, op. cit.
47. McCright and Dunlap, op. cit.
48. Zald and Useem, op. cit., p. 249.
49. Meyer and Staggenborg, op. cit., p. 1632.
50. See Mottl in Meyer and Staggenborg, op. cit., p. 1631.
51. Meyer and Staggenborg, op. cit., p. 1632.
52. McCright and Dunlap, op. cit.
53. Ibid.
54. Ibid., pp. 351-352.
55. Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 76-77.
56. Joachim, op. cit., p. 251.
57. McAdam et al., op. cit., p. 3.
58. Snow, in McAdam et al., op. cit., p. 6.
59. John L. Campbell, "Where do we Stand: Common Mechanisms in Organizations and Social Movement Research", in Gerald F. Davis, Doug McAdam, W. Richard Scott and Mayer N. Zald (eds.), Social Movements and Organization Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 48.
60. Joachim, op. cit., p. 252;
61. McAdam et al., op. cit., p. 5.
62. See, for instance, the case studies in Davis et al. (2005);
63. McAdam et al., op. cit.
64. Keck and Sikkink, op. cit.
65. Ibid., p. 19.
66. Meyer and Staggenborg, op. cit.
67. Meyer and Staggenborg, op. cit.;
68. Tarrow, Power in Movement, op. cit.;
69. Zald and Useem, op. cit.
70. Zald and Useem, op. cit., p. 254.
71. Meyer and Staggenborg, op. cit., p. 1638.
72. Ibid., p. 1636.
73. Moghadam, op. cit.; Bunch et al., op. cit.
74. Kardam, op. cit.
75. Friedman, op. cit., p. 313.
76. Chen, op. cit.
77. See Moghadam, op. cit., p. 12.
78. See Keck and Sikkink, op. cit.
79. West, op. cit., p. 191.
80. See Louise Chappell, "Women's Rights and Religious Opposition: The Politics of Gender at the International Criminal Court", in Yasmeen Abu-Laban (ed.), Gendering the Nation State: Canadian Comparative Perspectives (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, forthcoming, 2007).
81. Meyer and Staggenborg, op. cit.
82. Neale, op. cit.
83. LifeSite Daily News, "Beijing +5 Prepcom Final Report" (3 April 2000), available: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2000/apr/000403a.html. (accessed 20 January 2004).
84. Ruse, in Jennifer Butler, "300 Religious Right Participants Attend Beijing Prepcom" (2000), p. 1, available: http://www.globalpolicy.org/ngos/00deb/beij5-2htm. (accessed 2 September 2005).
85. Dianne Otto, "Holding Up Half the Sky, But for Whose Benefit?A Critical Analysis of the Fourth World Conference on Women", Australian Feminist Law Journal, Vol. 6 (1996), pp. 7-28.
86. Meyer and Staggenborg, op. cit.
87. Ibid., p. 1639.
88. Ibid., p. 1642.
89. Joachim, op. cit., p. 252.
90. The G77 is the largest Third World coalition in the United Nations. It provides the means for the developing world to articulate and promote its collective economic interests and enhance its joint negotiating capacity on all major international economic issues in the UN system, and promote economic and technical cooperation among developing countries. Many Islamic countries that have played a prominent role in UN conference debates on women's issues are members of the G77, including Egypt, Morocco, Iran, Kuwait, Malaysia and Libya.
91. Amy J. Higer, "International Women's Activism and the 1994 Cairo Population Conference", in Mary K. Meyer and Elisabeth Prugl (eds.), Gender and Politics in Global Governance (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), p. 136.
92. Colum Lynch, "Islamic Bloc, Christian Rights Team Up to Lobby UN", Washington Post (17 June 2002), p. A.1.
93. Allison Stevens, "U.S. Engages in Tug-of-war at Beijing Plus 10", WeNews (2005), available: http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/2211. (accessed 19 August 2005).
94. Ellen Sauerbury, "United States Mission to the United Nations", Press Release USUN #39 (05) (4 March 2005), available: http://www.un.int.usa/05print_039.htm. (accessed 19 August 2005).
95. Deborah Zabarenko "US Draws Jeers for Abortion Comments at UN", Reuters News (5 March 2005).
96. See Mary-Ann Stephenson, "Bush versusWomen's Rights", Mail and Guardian Online (15 March 2005), available: http://global.factiva.com.exproxy.library.usyd.edu.au/en/arch/ display.asp. (accessed 19 August 2005)
97. Warren Hoge, "Panel Backs Women's Rights after U.S. Drops Abortion Issue", New York Times (5 March 2005), p. 5.
98. Stephenson, op. cit.
99. Sauerbury, op. cit.
100. Meyer and Staggenborg, op. cit.
101. Ibid., p. 1649.
102. Ibid., pp. 1649-1650.
103. Bunch et al., op. cit., p. 377.
104. Friedman, op. cit., p. 314;
105. West, op. cit., p. 192.
106. Joachim, op. cit., p. 269.
107. Razavi, in Kardam, op. cit., p. 93.
108. Bunch et al., op. cit., p. 375.
109. Kardam, op. cit., p. 94;
110. Bunch et al., op. cit.
111. Press Trust of India, "UNWomen's Conference Reaffirms Beijing Action Plan", Asia Pulse (2005), available http://0global.factiva.com.opac.library.usyd.edu.au/en.arch/ print_results.asp. (accessed 26 August 2005).
112. Keck and Sikkink, op. cit., p. 9.
113. Rosalind Pollack Petchesky, Global Prescriptions: Gendering Health and Human Rights (London: Zed Books, 2003), p. 36.
114. In no sense does this paper suggest that either all Christian or Islamic activists fit within a conservative patriarchal paradigm. In Catholic, Protestant and Islamic traditions an array of alternative positions exist to challenge these views and much work, especially by feminist religious practitioners, has been undertaken to highlight the extent to which religious texts have been distorted to suit patriarchal political objectives. For Catholicism see Neale, op. cit.;
115. Frances Kissling, "From Cairo to Beijing and Beyond", Conscience (1995), available: http://www.catholicsforchoice.org/articles/roadlong.asp. (accessed 15 July 2004).
116. For Islam see Azizah Al-Hibri, "Islam, Law and Custom: Redefining Muslim Women's Rights", American University Journal of International Law and Policy, Vol. 12 (1997), pp. 1-44;
117. Lisa Hajjar, "Religion, State Power, and Domestic Violence in Muslim Societies: A Framework for Comparative Analysis", Law and Social Inquiry, Vol. 29 (2004), pp. 1-38;
118. Nayereh Tohidi, "Women's Rights in the Muslim World: The Universal-Particular Interplay", HAWWA, Vol. 1, No. 2 (2003), pp. 152-188.
119. Butler, op cit., p. 10.
120. See Bunch et al., op. cit., for details.
121. For Cairo see Neale, op. cit.;
122. Jyoti Shankar Singh, Creating a New Consensus on Population: The International Conference on Population and Development (London: Earthscan, 1998);
123. for Beijing see Center for Reproductive Rights, Five Year Review of the Beijing Fourth World Conference on Women, Briefing Paper (2000), available: http://www.crlp.org/ww_adv_beijing.html. (accessed 3 February 2004)
124. Kissling, op. cit.
125. Sabina Lauber, "Where to Now? International Women's Rights", Alternative Law Journal, Vol. 26, No. 1 (2001), p. 18;
126. Otto, op. cit., p. 16.
127. Buss and Herman, op. cit.
128. Ibid., p. 101.
129. Catholic World News, "Catholic-Islamic Dialogue Continues" (1997), available: http://cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=5330ambridge. (accessed 2 September 2005).
130. Buss and Herman, op. cit.;
131. Butler, op. cit., pp. 5, 18;
132. World Congress of Families, "Geneva Declaration" (1999), available: www.worldcongress.org/WCF2/wcf2_declaration.htm. (accessed 30 September 2005).
133. World Congress of Families, op. cit.
134. Buss and Herman, op. cit., pp. 80-81.
135. Religion Counts, Religion and Public Policy at the UN (Mount Vernon: Religion Counts, 2002), p. 9.
136. Austin Ruse, in Clare MacDonnell, "A Catholic Voice in the Wilderness of the UN", Catholic-Herald.com (1999), available: www.catholicherald.com/articles/00articles/ruse.htm. (accessed 2 September 2005).
137. Lynch, op. cit.
138. Laura Guzman Stein, "The Politics of Implementing Women's Rights in Catholic Countries of Latin America", in Jane H. Bayes and Nayereh Tohidi (eds.), op. cit.
139. Pope John Paul II, "Letter of Pope John Paul II to Women" (1995), available: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_pail_ii/ letters/documents/hf_jp_ii_let_29061995_women_en.html. (accessed 20 September 2005).
140. LifeSite Daily News, op. cit.
141. Ruse, in Butler, op. cit., p. 6.
142. Ruse, in Lynch, op. cit.
143. Anonymous, in Religion Counts, op. cit., p. 10.
144. Friedman, op. cit., p. 15.
145. McCright and Dunlap, op. cit., p. 351.
146. McAdam et al., op. cit., p. 17.
147. Meyer and Staggenborg, op. cit., p. 1652.
148. Friedman, op. cit., p. 318.
149. Keck and Sikkink, op. cit., p. 184.
150. See, for instance, Joachim, op. cit., pp. 262, 265;
151. Bunch et al., op. cit.
152. See Keck and Sikkink, op. cit., p. 184.
153. Bunch et al., op. cit., p. 381.
154. See Friedman, op. cit.
155. United Nations, Platform for Action, Fourth World Conference on Women, op. cit., Reservations, para. 11.
156. Rhonda Copelon, "Gender Crimes as War Crimes: Integrating Crimes against Women into International Law", McGill Law Journal, Vol. 46 (2000), p. 236;
157. Barbara C. Bedont, "Gender-specific Provisions in the Statute of the ICC", in F. Lattanzi and W. Schabas (eds.), Essays on the Rome Statute of the ICC (Naples: Editorial Scientifica, (1999), fn. 15, available: http://iccwomen.addr.com/recourses/genderprovs.html. (accessed 14 June 2004).
158. James Dobson, in Buss and Herman, op. cit., p. 113.
159. Buss, op. cit., p. 269;
160. Copelon, op. cit.
161. Lauber, op. cit., p. 18;
162. Otto, op. cit., p. 26.
163. United Nations, Platform for Action, Fourth World Conference on Women, op. cit., Reservations, para. 11.
164. Kissling, op. cit.
165. See Bedont, op. cit., p. 4;
166. Copelon, op. cit., p. 236;
167. Pam Spees, "Women's Advocacy in the Creation of the International Criminal Court: Changing the Landscapes of Justice and Power", Signs, Vol. 28, No. 4 (2003), p. 1253.
168. Neale, op. cit., p. 118.
169. Buss and Herman, op. cit.
170. United Nations, Platform for Action, Fourth World Conference on Women, op. cit., Reservations, para. 14.
171. Holy See, in Buss, op. cit., p. 347.
172. Pope John Paul II, op. cit.
173. For CR UN views on this see Buss and Herman, op. cit., p. 102.
174. Sajeda Amit and Sara Hossain, "Women's Reproductive Rights and the Politics of Fundamentalism: A View from Bangladesh", American University Law Review, Vol. 44 (1994-5), p. 1337;
175. United Nations, Report of the International Conference on Population and Development: Programme of Action, op. cit., Reservations, para. 27.
176. See Center for Reproductive Rights, op. cit.
177. Lauber, op. cit., p. 18;
178. Otto, op. cit., p. 16
179. Sauerbury, op. cit.
180. Holy See, "Intervention of the Holy See Diplomatic Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Establishment of An International Criminal Court, Working Group on War Crimes" (1998), available: http://147.222.27.5/people.dewolf/hs.html. (accessed 14 June 2004)
181. H.E. Mons. Jean-Louis Tauran, "The Defence of Life in the Context of OInternational Policies and Norms" (2004), available: file://C:Docume1~ADMINI~ENTLocals~TemptriIIAOF.htm. (accessed 3 February 2004)
182. C-Fam, "Radical Feminists Laud International Criminal Court" (2000), available: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2000/mar/00030905.html. (3 February 2004).
183. United Nations, Report of the International Conference on Population and Development: Programme of Action, op. cit., Reservations, para. 11.
184. United Nations, Platform for Action, Fourth World Conference on Women, op. cit., Reservations, para. 8.
185. See United Nations, Platform for Action, FourthWorld Conference onWomen, op. cit., Reservations.
186. Neale, op. cit., p. 110.
187. Navarro-Valls, in Kissling, op. cit.
188. See United Nations, Platform for Action, FourthWorld Conference onWomen, op. cit., Reservations, para 11;
189. Mary Ann Glendon, "Holy See Statement to the Fourth World Conference on Women" (5 September 1995), available: http://www.un/ org.esa.gopher-data/conf/fwcw/conf/gov/950905214652.txt. (accessed 13 July 2004).
190. Kissling, op. cit.
191. Bayes and Tohidi, op. cit., p. 3; Buss and Herman, op. cit.
192. Keck and Sikkink, op. cit.
193. Ibid., pp. 13-14.
194. McCright and Dunlap, op. cit.
195. United Nations, Platform for Action, Fourth World Conference on Women, op. cit.
196. See Otto, op. cit., p. 12.
197. Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998), UN Doc. A/Conf. 183/9. Article 7(3) (1 October 2003), available: http://www.un.org.icc/ statute/romefra.htm.
198. Copelon, op. cit., p. 237.
199. See Buss, op. cit., p. 248; Otto, op. cit., pp. 25-26.
200. Lauber, op. cit., p. 18.
201. Center for Reproductive Rights, op. cit.; Kissling, op. cit.
202. See Copelon, op. cit.; Bedont, op. cit.
203. Neale, op. cit., p. 117.
204. See Neale, op. cit., p. 117
205. Anne Shepherd, "Abortion Debate Deferred as More Voices Join the Vatican", Press Release, Women's Feature Service (1994), available: http://www.iisd.ca/Cairo/wfsabort.txt. (23 July 2004).
206. See Center for Reproductive Rights, op. cit.
207. Asa Frostfeldt, "Beijing Plus Five - MuchWork Left to Be Done", Human Rights Databank, Vol. 7 (2000), pp. 2, 3, available: http://64.26.129.97/tribune/viewArticle.asp?ID=2568. (accessed 26 January 2004)
208. Women's Caucus for Gender Justice, "The Crime of Forced Pregnancy" (1998), available: http://www.iccwomen.org/icc/iccpc/rome. (accessed 2 October 2002).
209. See Bedont, op. cit.; Copelon, op. cit.
210. Stevens, op. cit.
211. For a discussion see Manisha Desai, "Transnational Solidarity: Women's Agency, Structural Adjustment and Globalization", in Nancy A. Naples and Manisha Desai (eds.), Women's Activism and Globalization: Linking Local Struggles and Transnational Politics (New York: Routledge, 2002), p. 28.
212. Otto, op. cit., pp. 27-28.
213. Network of Women Parliamentarians of the Americas, "The Tenth Anniversary of the Beijing Conference and the Possible Holding of the Fifth World Conference on Women" (2004), available: http://www.copa.qc.ca/Anglais/Femmesang/Brasilia-2004-03/ F-RES-Beijing-10e%20anniversaire-a.pdf. (accessed 1 October 2005).
214. Asian Women in Development (AWID), "The 5th World Conference/Beijing +10 Debate" (2005), available: http://www.awid.org/go.php?stid=613. (accessed 26 August 2005).
215. Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), "Dawn Says No to Negotiations", DAWN Inform (2003), available: http://www.dawn.org.fj/global/globalisation/linkagesproject/ institute2003/prelimreaderdocs/notonegs.doc. (accessed 9 October 2005).
216. Tarrow "Transnational Politics", op. cit.
217. Zald and Usmeem, op. cit.
218. Meyer and Staggenborg, op. cit.
219. Tarrow "Transnational Politics", op. cit.