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Book Reviews
Rebecca J. Cook (ed.), Human Rights of Women: National and
International Perspectives, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press
(1994) xiv + 634 pages + Appendixes + Index.
In the first of its five parts, this book, originating in an
International Consultation on Women's International Human Rights hosted by the
International Human Rights Programme of the Faculty of Law, University of
Toronto, Canada, 31 August -2 September 1992, contains report on a consultation
of lawyers from different countries of Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia, and
Australia and shows the multiplicity of problems and perspectives linked with
efforts to have human rights instruments applied correctly in order to repair
the gender based injustice experienced by women.
The second part, entitled 'Challenges', contains five contributions that
offer a series of thought provoking observations. First, Radhika Coomaraswamy
states that effective implementation of women's rights as human rights fails in
South Asia because of the lack of proper implementation instruments and because
of ideological obstacles. Major barriers are family and personal law, which
vary greatly from the secular state law. More generally, the existing system of
human rights, supposed to imply universal application, in fact privileges a
masculine world view - the whole system should be redefined and the existing
insufficient model of non-discrimination abandoned. As Hilary Charlesworth
points out, 'the international prohibition on sex discrimination promises
equality to women who attempt to conform to a male model, and offers little to
those who do not'.
Another pattern challenged is that of the public/private dichotomy at
the core of public international law. largely influenced by western values. It
in fact allows subordination of women, whose sphere of activities is mostly
considered as private. This mechanism covers, among others, the lack of state
intervention in case of harm caused to women, as the state is expected not to
violate privacy. Thus the rights of women are largely left unprotected and the
state rightly considered, according to Celina Romany, a party to maintaining
patriarchy.
The third part presents international and regional approaches, covering
the Islamic world, the Americas, and Africa. Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im discusses
the promise of the methodology of the Sudanese Muslim reformer Taha for reform
of Shari'a religious law. Cecilia Medina questions the inter-American system
for the promotion and protection of human rights and analyses the possibilities
which this system offers to work on strengthening national law. The protection
of the rights of women under the African Charter of Human and Peoples' Rights
is the subject of Chaloka Beyani's contribution. Adetoun O. Ilumoka approaches
the issues of African women's economic, social, and cultural rights, national
constitutions, legislation, and customary or religious laws with special focus
on Nigeria.
The international approaches further include contributions by Andrew
Byrnes, Rebecca J. Cook, Kenneth Roth and Mona Rishmawi who presents the
approaches of the International Commission of Jurists to women's rights.
The fourth part is dedicated to national approaches, focusing on Canada
(Anne F. Bayefsky and Kathleen E. Mahoney), India (Kirti Singh) with the
problems of personal laws, Sudan (Asma Abdel Halim) with the issues of
anti-feminine interpretation of the Qur'an, and Ghana (Akua Kuenyehia) with the
impact of structural adjustment programs on vulnerable groups, e.g. women.
The last part deals with guaranteeing human rights of particular
significance to women such as personal laws, equal access to land, reproductive
rights of women and violence against women.
The strength of the book lies not only in the extensive coverage of the
theme and in its interdisciplinary approach but also in the fact that all the
contributions are extremely well documented and the book contains informative
appendices.
Jarmila Bednariko
Institut suisse de droit comparé, Lausanne
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