I am delighted to contribute my first post to this excellent website to let readers know of the final book in a six volume series, Connecting International Law with Public Law, which I initiated as part of my former position as Director of the Centre for International and Public law at the ANU (2006-2015).  The first five volumes looks at themes including Sanctions, Access to Medicines, Environmental Discourses, Allegiance and Identity, and Security Institutions and have been published through Cambridge University Press.

The final volume has just been launched and it is of particular interest to the IntLawGrrls community.

I have co-edited this final volume with my friend and former ANU colleague Dr. Katharine Young, who is now at Boston University, and it is called The Public Law of Gender: From the Local to the Global. The volume brings together leading lawyers, political scientists, historians and philosophers.

The book examines the worldwide sweep of gender-neutral, gender-equal or gender-sensitive public laws in international treaties, national constitutions and statutes, and documents the raft of legal reform and critically analyses its effectiveness. In demarcating the academic study of the public law of gender, the book examines law’s structuring of politics, governing and gender in a new global frame.

Of interest to constitutional and statutory designers, advocates, adjudicators and scholars, the contributions explore how concepts such as equality, accountability, representation, participation and rights, depend on, challenge or enlist gendered roles and/or categories. These enquiries suggest that the new public law of gender must confront the lapses in enforcement, sincerity and coverage that are common in both national and international law and governance, and critically and pluralistically recast the public/private distinction in family, community, religion, customary and market domains.  The book outlines the common and distinct challenges and issues across various fields and it provides those working with gender-sensitive laws and gender-neutral laws with an assessment of the various ways in which public law interacts with gender, by intent or outcome. It also uncovers the local and global perspectives and the obstacles facing gender equality, equity and parity, showing how traditional agendas of feminist theory now translate in a global legal frame.

I would encourage any one interested in reviewing the volume (or any of the set of six, or indeed the whole set!) for a journal to contact Elizabeth Spicer at Cambridge University Press- espicer [at] cambridge.org.

Professor Kim Rubenstein, ANU College of Law, Public Policy Fellow, Australian National University