It is our great pleasure to welcome back Dr Catherine O’Rourke to IntLawGrrls! She posts today on “Pursuing Synergies to Guarantee Women’s Rights in Conflict: The UN Security Council Arria Formula Meeting on CEDAW and the Women, Peace and Security Resolutions.”

Catherine researches, teaches and engages in policy work in the fields of gender, conflict and international law. Catherine is Senior Lecturer in Human Rights and International Law at Ulster University Transitional Justice Institute and Irish Fulbright Scholar 2016-17 at the University of Minnesota Institute for Global Studies Human Rights Program. Further, she coordinates the Gender Research Stream of the DFID-funded Political Settlements Research Programme. Catherine has a noted record of publications and research grants. She is author of ‘Gender Politics in Transitional Justice’ (Routledge, 2013).

Catherine is Independent Academic Expert on the Oversight Group for the Irish government’s National Action Plan Action on Women, Peace and Security. She is regularly commissioned by intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations to conduct expert research on gender and conflict, such as commissioned research on gender and reparations by UN Women, the Office of the High Commission on Human Rights and the International Criminal Court Trust Fund for Victims. Other commissioned work includes the UN Women Guidebook on CEDAW and the Women, Peace and Security Resolutions (2015, with Aisling Swaine) and a baseline study on the implementation of UNSC Resolution 1325 in Northern Ireland (2012, with Karen McMinn).

Catherine is active in local feminist politics in Belfast, in particular on issues of gender and dealing with the past, and reproductive rights. She is a member of the Belfast-based Legacy Gender Integration Group and Lawyers for Choice.

Heartfelt welcome!