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Powderly, Joseph; Chylinski, Jacob --- "The women judges: leading the line in the development of international law" [2017] ELECD 368; in Schabas, A. William; Murphy, Shannonbrooke (eds), "Research Handbook on International Courts and Tribunals" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 143

Book Title: Research Handbook on International Courts and Tribunals

Editor(s): Schabas, A. William; Murphy, Shannonbrooke

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781781005019

Section: Chapter 5

Section Title: The women judges: leading the line in the development of international law

Author(s): Powderly, Joseph; Chylinski, Jacob

Number of pages: 38

Abstract/Description:

In the history of the development of the international legal system and its institutions, women’s voices have only very recently begun to be heard at the level of the international judiciary. Much has been written on this historical neglect and the need for representativeness on the benches of international courts and tribunals. In recent years some progress, albeit slow and piecemeal, has been made, and most international courts and tribunals can now point to a record of judicial appointments of, and judicial decisions made by, women. A number of individual appointments are of course well known and have been the subject of significant academic treatment. The focus of this chapter however is broader – it aims to provide a non-exhaustive, illustrative historical survey of the contribution women judges in international courts and tribunals have made to the development of public international law and the institutions to which they have been appointed. In the following sections 2–5 we canvass a number of international or internationalized courts and tribunals, starting with the International Court of Justice (or ‘World Court’), followed by institutions specializing in international criminal law, international human rights law, and arbitral and other tribunals. For each sub-area, the degree of gender representation achieved to date is assessed, followed by consideration of a selection of jurisprudential developments, driven, or at the very least influenced, by women judges.