2019 has been an important year for the LSE Centre for Women, Peace and Security Blog. We have run a mini-blog series on Gender, Nature and Peace which examines feminist approaches to the climate disaster and the gendered impacts of climate change; we welcomed analysis from authors worldwide on gendered peace and women’s human rights; we provided key legal analysis on significant violence against women cases in international law; and we also provided expert analysis of this year’s two Security Council resolutions 2467 and 2493.
To close 2019 we are wrapping up with five of our top blogs from the year that have covered important current issues, engaged our women, peace and security community in necessary dialogue and given us food for thought for 2020.
1. Sexualised violence and land grabbing: forgotten conflict and ignored victims in West Papua
Sexual violence committed against the people of West Papua is being used increasingly by Indonesian security forces as a means of taking land from the indigenous population. Szilvia Csevár and Christine Tremblay from The Hague University of Applied Sciences, look at the enforced militarisation of West Papua and the patterns of sexual violence used as a means to fully control and exploit the islands natural resources. Read the blog.
Outside of a relatively specialised circle of policy experts and advocates, negotiations over UN Security Council resolutions don’t usually get a lot of coverage in social and mainstream media – Resolution 2467, adopted on 23 April 2019 was somewhat different in this regard. Louise Allen and Laura J. Shepherd argue that resolution 2467, and the circumstances of its adoption, gives all of us who are interested in the Women, Peace and Security agenda reason to be very concerned about the future of the agenda and the preservation of the small and hard-fought victories that it can reasonably claim. Read the blog.
A survivor-centred, rights-based approach to conflict-related violence must be intersectional. Elena B. Stavrevska argues here why we must acknowledge victims/survivors whose voices are not always present and address the intersecting structures that lead to violence if we are to really be transformative in our response to conflict-related sexual violence. Read the blog.
The concept of “patriarchy” has been both a call to action and an analytical tool for feminist understandings of women’s place in the world as we know it. Over the past 100 years, feminist activists have made signs, worn on their chests, or loudly exclaimed the mantra: “smash the patriarchy”. In this article Cassandra Mudgway presents analysis on how patriarchy is used in international law and by treaty monitoring bodies, cautioning against limiting the scope and meaning of patriarchy by only associating it with some beliefs and practices and not also seeing it as a system of power. Read the blog.
There is a need to take stock of current global developments in the field of disarmament, reflect on the successful strategies that have been pursued and identify additional entry points to advance disarmament through international law. Louise Arimatsu and Keina Yoshida look at what a feminist approach to disarmament would look like, and how international law can be more effectively harnessed to further disarmament goals and peace. Read the blog.
Header image: Mainie Jellett whose work was among the first abstract paintings shown in Ireland. #womensart