The Rise (and Fall?) of Transitional Gender Justice: A Survey of the Field

Abstract

This chapter provides a broad outline of the field of transitional gender justice post-World War Two, surveying key legal, political and humanitarian developments, particularly those pertaining most directly to women. It traces the optimism of women’s rights advocates throughout the 1990s with prosecutions of sexual violence at the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and Yugoslavia, the strong global support for UN Security Council Resolution 1325, an increased focus on gender in humanitarian interventions, through to growing disillusionment as the lives of women in conflict zones remain marked by violence, displacement, exclusion and injustice despite significant shifts at the international level. This chapter provides a broad survey of major standpoints on the capacity of transitional justice to transform the lives of women.