International Conflict Feminism - (Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights) by Vasuki Nesiah (Hardcover)

About the Book

"This book analyzes the astonishing uptake of International Conflict Feminism in powerful global institutions. Examining fields such as transitional justice, peace-building and post-conflict economic policy, the book argues that this success came with remarkable costs, including to dissident feminisms, and visions and agendas that challenge the dominant world system"--

Book Synopsis

Analyzes the impact of International Conflict Feminism's alliance with powerful global institutions

In this book, Vasuki Nesiah tells the story of the astonishing uptake of International Conflict Feminism (ICF) in the most powerful institutions of global governance. ICF refers to a repertoire of policy agendas and legal strategies allied with those institutions to focus on women's vulnerabilities, fight impunity for sexual violence, and promote women's roles in peace-building processes. ICF emerged from feminist networks anchored in the Global North that gained momentum in the aftermath of the Cold War. Although this volume offers a testament to ICF's remarkable success, it also analyzes how this success was intertwined with the defeat of alternative visions and agendas, including a range of dissident and heterodox feminisms that were eclipsed as ICF gained traction.

Emerging from Nesiah's dual occupations in academia and international law and policy practice, International Conflict Feminism shows how centrally the ICF agenda has shaped fields such as peace building, international criminal law, transitional justice, and post-conflict economic policy. Each section pauses at different sites in the international governance architecture to analyze the distributive impact of ICF and its allied global policy agendas to examine what is privileged, legitimized, and empowered, and what is subordinated, marginalized, and further excluded.

ICF is a project of ideas and passions, legal proposals, and policy orientations. Today, when the most powerful countries of the world are describing their military, economic, and political interventions as a "feminist foreign policy," the task of understanding and assessing the ICF project is especially urgent. Nesiah argues that, rather than obfuscating and denying the power of the ICF agenda, grappling with ICF's power is essential to achieving solidarity with feminisms that don't have a seat at the table, in particular those dissident feminist traditions with priorities and interests that challenge the dominant world order and its injustices and hierarchies.

Review Quotes

"This book is provocative and insightful. It exposes International Conflict Feminism (ICF) as simultaneously powerful, efficient, and coopted. It takes on mainstream feminist international law theory and practice regarding conflict regulation. It fulsomely demonstrates the costs to women of over two decades of ascendent WPS and international criminal law. It won't be comfortable reading for many. It is all the more essential because of that."-- "Fionnuala Ní Aoláin KC (Hons), author of On the Frontlines: Gender, War and Post-Conflict Process"

"Vasuki Nesiah deftly interweaves discourses on international human rights and humanitarian law and practice with key feminist and postcolonial insights to produce an original and illuminating take on the rise of what she terms International Conflict Feminism. Against the backdrop of post-Cold War liberal internationalism, she elucidates how processes of transitional justice, international criminal prosecution, and post-conflict management adopted specific feminist vocabularies, while eschewing others. From Rwanda to Kosovo to Sri Lanka and beyond, Nesiah mounts a meticulous critique of the choices made by these institutional projects while also discussing paths not taken. This book should be read by anyone seeking to understand the full remit of global governance and international women's rights - and their interrelationship - in the contemporary era."-- "Chantal Thomas, author of Disorderly Borders: How International Law Shapes Irregular Migration"

"A brilliant tour de force! Lucidly argued, scrupulously researched, richly detailed, and politically urgent, even visionary, Vasuki Nesiah has produced the definitive analysis of the historic place of international feminism(s) in modern global governance and security. The scales fall from your eyes as she reveals the depoliticizing work of 'the conflict zone, ' tracks the afterlives of colonialism in the courts of international law, and lays bare the (failed) promises of voice in truth commissions and empowerment in neoliberal economies. Sharp critique is balanced by the offer of alternative possibilities, ones that take seriously the work of empire and the vitality of the Global South."-- "Lila Abu-Lughod, author of Do Muslim Women Need Saving?"

About the Author

Vasuki Nesiah is Professor of Practice, Human Rights and International Law at the Gallatin School, NYU.