Women and Peace and Security: The Politics of Implementing Gender Sensitivity Norms in Peacekeeping

A new international regime mandating mainstreaming gender responsiveness and women's rights in peace negotiations and complex UN peacekeeping was consolidated in October 2000 with the UN Security Council's hearings on the subject and Resolution 1325 legally requiring multitudinous initiatives. While women's rights, including universal jurisdiction for sexual violence, were already part of this regime, the programmatic endeavours became legally binding as a result of this resolution. These include involving women's NGOs and women in official capacities in both negotiations to make peace, and the implementation of peacebuilding. This contribution outlines the development of various norms (both those which are directly part of the regime and others which affect it) that are legally binding, as well as policy and programmatic initiatives whose makeup is developed on a case-by-case basis. It calls attention to the difficulties of implementing them by reviewing problems of protecting women's rights and related human rights norms in both treaty-based and UN Charter-based bodies.