Reconstructing the Narrative of Transnational Feminist Agency: The Women's Caucus for Gender Justice in the International Criminal Court

• Main Author: Veneracion-Rallonza, Ma. Lourdes
• Format: text
• Published: Archīum Ateneo 2015
• Subjects: Political Science
• Online Access: https://archium.ateneo.edu/polsci-faculty-pubs/22; https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781315680644/chapters/10.4324/9781315680644-6
• Institution: Ateneo De Manila University

This chapter discusses the transnational agency of the Women's Caucus for Gender Justice in the International Criminal Court (ICC). As a Transnational Feminist Networks (TFN), the Women's Caucus is depicted as a global network of individuals and organizations committed to the establishment of a gender-sensitive ICC. According to the Women's Caucus, members of the Sixth Committee were "used to negotiating in seclusion because much of what they do does not really draw civil society into it". As norm entrepreneurs, the Women's Caucus operated on the basic premise that an international court that does not include 'gender justice' or formal justice for women is not a universal justice mechanism for criminal justice. The creation of ad hoc tribunals such as the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) to prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity gave the contextual push to further work on the creation of the world's first permanent court.