Constituting Equality
Gender Equality and Comparative Constitutional Law

This book takes a design-oriented approach to the broad range of issues that arise in constitutional drafting concerning gender equality.

Susan H. Williams (Edited by)

9781107403178, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 18 August 2011

382 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm, 0.56 kg

Constituting Equality addresses the question, how would you write a constitution if you really cared about gender equality? The book takes a design-oriented approach to the broad range of issues that arise in constitutional drafting concerning gender equality. Each section of the book examines a particular set of constitutional issues or doctrines across a range of different countries to explore what works, where, and why. Topics include: governmental structure (particularly electoral gender quotas); rights provisions; constitutional recognition of cultural or religious practices that discriminate against women; domestic incorporation of international law; and the role of women in the process of constitution making. Interdisciplinary in orientation and global in scope, the book provides a menu for constitutional designers and others interested in how the fundamental legal order might more effectively promote gender equality.

Introduction: comparative constitutional law, gender equality, and constitutional design Susan H. Williams
Part I. Structure: 1. Gender quotas in politics - a constitutional challenge Drude Dahlerup and Lenita Freidenvall
2. Equality, representation, and challenge to hierarchy: justifying electoral quotas for women Susan H. Williams
Part II. Rights: 3. More than rights Helen Irving
4. Perfectionism and fundamentalism in the application of the German abortion law Mary Anne Case
5. Moral authority in English and American abortion law Joanna Erdman
Part III. Cultural/Religious Rights and Gender Equality: 6. Must feminists support entrenchment of sex equality? Lessons from Quebec Beverly Baines
7. Deconstructing the east/west binary: substantive equality and Islamic marriage in a comparative dialogue Pascale Fournier
8. Conflicting agendas? Women's rights and customary law in African constitutional reform Aili Marie Tripp
9. Gender equality and the rule of law in Liberia: statutory law, customary law, and the status of women Felicia Coleman
Part IV. Constitutional Incorporation of International Law: 10. Constitutional incorporation of international and comparative human rights laws: the Colombian constitutional court decision c-355/2006 Veronica Undurraga and Rebecca Cook
11. Guatemalan transnational feminists: how their search for constitutional equality interplays with international law Christiana Ochoa
Part V. Women in the Process of Constitution Making: 12. Women in the constitution drafting process in Burma Thin Thin Aung
13. Founding mothers for a Palestinian constitution? Adrien Wing
Conclusion: gender equality and the idea of a constitution: entrenchment, jurisdiction, and interpretation Vicki Jackson.

Subject Areas: Constitutional & administrative law [LND], Law & society [LAQ], Comparative law [LAM], Politics & government [JP]