Constituting Equality Gender Equality and Comparative Constitutional Law

Constituting Equality addresses the question, how would you write a constitution if you really cared about gender equality? The book takes a design-oriented approach to the broad range of issues that arise in constitutional drafting concerning gender equality. Each section of the book examines a particular set of constitutional issues or doctrines across a range of different countries to explore what works, where, and why. Topics include: governmental structure (particularly electoral gender quotas); rights provisions; constitutional recognition of cultural or religious practices that discriminate against women; domestic incorporation of international law; and the role of women in the process of constitution making. Interdisciplinary in orientation and global in scope, the book provides a menu for constitutional designers and others interested in how the fundamental legal order might more effectively promote gender equality.

Introduction: comparative constitutional law, gender equality, and constitutional design Susan H. Williams; Part I. Structure: 1. Gender quotas in politics - a constitutional challenge Drude Dahlerup and Lenita Freidenvall; 2. Equality, representation, and challenge to hierarchy: justifying electoral quotas for women Susan H. Williams; Part II. Rights: 3. More than rights Helen Irving; 4. Perfectionism and fundamentalism in the application of the German abortion law Mary Anne Case; 5. Moral authority in English and American abortion law Joanna Erdman; Part III. Cultural/Religious Rights and Gender Equality: 6. Must feminists support entrenchment of sex equality? Lessons from Quebec Beverly Baines; 7. Deconstructing the east/west binary: substantive equality and Islamic marriage in a comparative dialogue Pascale Fournier; 8. Conflicting agendas? Women's rights and customary law in African constitutional reform Aili Marie Tripp; 9. Gender equality and the rule of law in Liberia: statutory law, customary law, and the status of women Felicia Coleman; Part IV. Constitutional Incorporation of International Law: 10. Constitutional incorporation of international and comparative human rights laws: the Colombian constitutional court decision c-355/2006 Veronica Undurraga and Rebecca Cook; 11. Guatemalan transnational feminists: how their search for constitutional equality interplays with international law Christiana Ochoa; Part V. Women in the Process of Constitution Making: 12. Women in the constitution drafting process in Burma Thin Thin Aung; 13. Founding mothers for a Palestinian constitution? Adrien Wing; Conclusion: gender equality and the idea of a constitution: entrenchment, jurisdiction, and interpretation Vicki Jackson.

Originally published in 2009, Constituting Equality addresses the question, how would you write a constitution if you really cared about gender equality? The book takes a design-oriented approach to the broad range of issues that arise in constitutional drafting concerning gender equality.