It’s our great pleasure today to welcome Gina Heathcote as an IntLawGrrls contributor.  Gina is a feminist scholar working in the Centre for Gender Studies and the School of Law at SOAS, University of London. Gina writes and teaches on Public International Law, International Law on the Use of Force and Gender Studies. Gina completed her PhD at the London School of Economics, subsequently publishing her thesis as a monograph with Routledge. Her book The Law on the Use of Force: a Feminist Analysis looks at the  international justifications for the use of force using gender as an analytical tool. The book is the only extended feminist study of the international law on the use of force and has recently been published in paperback.
Gina also writes on the Security Council’s work in women, peace and security and feminist method, she is particularly interested in the relationship between law, violence and gender; tensions between formal equality and women’s lived experiences, as well as structural bias feminisms. Together with Professor Dianne Otto, Gina convened a symposium on Peacekeeping and Gender in the Asia-Pacific at Melbourne Law School in April 2012. Gina and Di have recently completed editing a collection of key presentations from the symposuim in book titled Rethinking Gender and Peacekeeping, Gender Equality and Collective Security (forthcoming 2014). Gina is currently writing her second book: to be titled, Feminist Dialogues on International Law and published by Oxford University Press in 2014.

Gina’s introductory post today takes a critical look at UN Security Council Resolution 2106 on Women, Peace, and Security, adopted last week.  Heartfelt welcome!