Feminist Methods in International Law

Abstract

I have mixed feelings about participating in this symposium as the feminist voice. On the one hand, I want to support the symposium editors’ attempt to broaden the standard categories of international legal methodologies by including feminism in this undertaking. On the other hand, I am conscious of the limits of my analysis and its unrepresentativeness—the particularity of my nationality, race, class, sexuality, education and profession shapes my outlook and ideas on international law. I clearly cannot speak for all women participants in and observers of the international legal system. I also hope that one day I will stop being positioned always as a feminist and will qualify as a fully fledged international lawyer. My reservations are also more general because presenting feminism as one of seven rival methodological traditions may give a false sense of its nature. The symposium editors’ memorandum to the participants encouraged a certain competitiveness: we were asked, “Why is your method better than others?” I cannot answer this question. I do not see feminist methods as ready alternatives to any of the other methods represented in this symposium. Feminist methods emphasize conversations and dialogue rather than the production of a single, triumphant truth.1 They will not lead to neat “legal” answers because they are challenging the very categories of “law” and “nonlaw.” Feminist methods seek to expose and question the limited bases of international law’s claim to objectivity and impartiality and insist on the importance of gender relations as a category of analysis. The term “gender” here refers to the social construction of differences between women and men and ideas of “femininity” and “masculinity”—the excess cultural baggage associated with biological sex.

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