XIX ISA World Congress of Sociology (July 15-21, 2018)

964

International Interventions, Gender Relations and Justice

TG03 Human Rights and Global Justice (host committee)

Language: English

There is an emerging standardised ‘set’ of international responses to conflict including internationally mediated peace negotiations, prosecutions, truth commissions and an influx of aid and development NGOs. After sustained efforts from women’s movements and civil society, international actors are broadening their concerns to include the impacts of conflict on women – often under the banner of ‘gender justice’ or ‘women’s rights’. Many high status interventions deal primarily with elites from within conflict communities and seek to rebuild on a western neoliberal democratic model with little accommodation of local practices or involvement of those most adversely impacted by the conflict. This model risks reinforcing pre-existing structural inequalities and further privileging those most able to access power, and further marginalising those with least access to political, economic and cultural power. Meanwhile, NGO development interventions are fraught with tensions, often emerging from and operating within colonial charitable or humanitarian paradigms that depoliticise and dehistoricise conflicts and people. This panel explores the impacts of transitional justice interventions, typically driven by the Global North and applied to countries of the Global South, on gender relations and justice (broadly understood) in post-conflict societies. What are the effects of the rise of International Criminal Law on post-conflict societies? How are western liberal messages of ‘women’s rights’ interpreted ‘on the ground’? How are women and men in post-conflict societies using, resisting or co-opting international interventions? Are local actors able to influence international interventions? To what extent do international interventions improve the daily lives of citizens in post-conflict societies?