This week we continue our discussions surrounding gender and international justice by looking at gender apartheid.
For this episode, we got hold of Karima Bennoune, the former UN special rapporteur in the field of cultural rights from 2015 to 2021 and currently the Lewis M. Simes Professor of Law at the University of Michigan.
Her work, including her 2022 report entitled The International Obligation to Counter Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan, has been instrumental in highlighting the issue of gender apartheid in Afghanistan.
In September 2023, she addressed the UN Security Council about gender apartheid in Afghanistan and would like to see it codified under the possible new crimes against humanity convention, which is currently under consideration by the UN General Assembly’s Sixth Committee.
It’s really one of those hot topics in our world – earlier this year, a panel of United Nations experts called for gender apartheid to be recognised as a crime against humanity, highlighting the situation of women and girls in Afghanistan.
And we are reflecting those debates! For example, you can hear more about the road towards a new CAH treaty with Leila Sadat and Priya Pillai and we did a podcast on the way that conflict is affecting gender norms in Ukraine, with Kateryna Busol.
For recommendations this week Karima highlighted two legal cases. The first was the Namibia Advisory Opinion before the International Court of Justice, which, according to Karima, serves as an example cited by feminist scholars like Courtney Howland, illustrating how cultural or religious practices can be rejected when they justify violations of human rights, particularly those directed against women.
The second case she flagged was that of Jean-Paul Akayesu at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. This case is especially important to Karima because it interpreted the Genocide Convention in a gender-inclusive way, recognizing rape as a form of genocide.
And she recommends listening to Lebanese musicians – especially in the current circumstances – including Fairuz and Marcel Khalife.
This podcast has been produced as part of a partnership with JusticeInfo.net, an independent website in French and English covering justice initiatives in countries dealing with serious violence. It is a media outlet of Fondation Hirondelle, based in Lausanne, Switzerland
