Feminist Approaches to International Law

This chapter outlines feminist strategies in legal research focusing on some of their main tools and methods. It starts with an overview of feminist epistemologies and concerns –from the androcentric nature of legal frameworks to the social construction of gender and sex to the homogenous representations of women’s experiences. The chapter then delves into feminist legal theory (FLT) and its critique of law, focusing on international human rights law. This includes practical examples of FLTs in legal doctrine, judicial reasoning, and socio-legal research. The chapter also features feminist re-writing and offers a number of exercises that the reader can complete in order to get a better understanding of the approaches presented.