Book Review: International Law: Modern Feminist Approaches
| Published date | 01 March 2007 |
| Date | 01 March 2007 |
| Author | Nicole LaViolette |
| DOI | 10.1177/096466390701600109 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
intractable political conflict is a compromise. Accordingly, although legislation is
necessarily enacted in the name of a whole, political pluralism entails that legislation
is shared intentional activity, not shared cooperative activity. But, by the same token,
only the reference to a ‘We’, albeit virtual, can delimit modern politics as a ‘field of
battle in which contending parties are never fully consumed by victories and defeats,
and thus are never fully reconciled’ (p. 41, emphasis added). This virtual reference to
a manifold of individuals who constitute themselves as a unity in action means that
in modernity the ‘horizon of possibility’ of the political is freedom, individual and
collective. This sense of autonomy is, however, irreducible to the systemic sense of
autonomy to which Rasch appeals when defending the autonomy and primacy of the
political: the ‘autos’ of autopoiesis is not the ‘self’ of collective self-determination.
HANS LINDAHL
Tilburg University, The Netherlands
DORIS BUSS AND AMBREENA MANJI (eds), International Law: Modern Feminist
Approaches. Oxford: Hart, 2005, 303 pp., ISBN 1841134279, £22.50 (pbk).
International Law: Modern Feminist Approaches is a collection of works by feminist
scholars who seek to map feminist perspectives to international law and reflect on
what it means to include ‘the international’ in their theory and practice. Unlike many
other collections of readings, this one cannot be criticized for a lack of theoretical or
conceptual coherence. According to the introduction by the editors, the essays ‘reflect
feminist work on different aspects of international law’ (p. 5). Editors Doris Buss and
Ambreena Manji specify that the essays ‘offer a snapshot of current feminist thinking
on some of the doctrinal, applied and theoretical aspects of both international law and
feminist engagement with “the international”’ (p. 5). What follows is what is
promised: stimulating feminist analyses of the international legal order.
Buss and Manji have assembled an impressive group of academics to produce a well-
written and forward-moving piece of scholarship. The 13 essays are not organized into
any specific sections or themes, but taken together, the essays take the reader on a wide-
ranging tour of international feminist scholarship. This is a well-edited collection, with
contributions of consistent quality both in terms of substance, research and form.
A chapter by Christine Chinkin, Shelley Wright and Hilary Charlesworth, three
academics who published what is considered a groundbreaking theoretical piece on
feminism and international law back in 1991 (Charlesworth et al., 1991), starts off the
collection. Their chapter reflects on the progress made in the last 15 years, which,
they argue, remains limited as ‘feminist issues have been either corralled in the
margins, or rendered so bland that they have no transformative bite’ (p. 44). Many
readers will certainly be pleased that these authors have provided an update of the
well-known 1991 article, but also likely to be disappointed that the substantive
content is more of a cursory listing of different developments than an expansion of
their theoretical approach (though Charlesworth and Chinkin (2002) take up that
challenge in another publication).
While a serious attempt was made to encourage a feminist analysis of several areas
of international law, many essays in this collection continue to focus on the field of
international human rights or international criminal law, where feminists have already
had an impact. Mary Robinson, in her ‘Foreword’ to the collection, suggests the book
considers ‘the question of what comes next for international law, human rights and
feminism’ (p. v). While Robinson is highly respected for her international public
service as a former United Nations Human Rights Commissioner, the decision to
152 SOCIAL & LEGAL STUDIES 16(1)
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