Making the Normative Case: Implementing Security Council Resolution 1325 as Part of a Legal Framework on Women, Peace and Security - London School of Economics, Department of Law
This submission makes the normative case for understanding Security Council Resolution 1325 (SCR 1325) and related resolutions on women, peace and security (WPS) as an integrated part of an established and growing framework of international and regional law that upholds the rights of women and girls in relation to conflict (the legal framework). This legal framework is grounded in international and regional human rights law, international humanitarian law (IHL) international criminal law and international refugee law. These sources of law are reflected in the commitments in the Security Council resolutions on women, peace and security (WPS) to uphold the rights of women and girls, and men and boys, in relation to conflict. The legal framework places binding obligations on states, non-state actors, the United Nations (UN) and other organizations, and is sourced from treaties and customary international law. Situating SCR 1325 and its following resolutions on WPS as part of this legal framework, rather than seeing them as isolated political statements, allows them to be understood a part of a body of obligations that uphold human rights at all stages of conflict, from prevention to resolution to transitions towards peace.
Section 1 situates the resolutions on WPS in the context of an established and growing legal framework that recognises the duties to uphold the human rights of women, girls, men and boys, held by all parties involved in conflicts, including states, non-state actors, and international and regional organizations. The legal framework, when fully implemented, allows women, girls, men and boys, to claim their rights and hold perpetrators accountable for violations of those rights, in ways that guarantee both substantive and transformative equality.
Section 2 of the submission considers how the legal framework on WPS outlined in Section 1 could be implemented, via National Action Plans (NAPs). This section contains six case studies of SCR 1325 NAPs from different regions around the world.
- The Democratic Republic of the Congo (Africa)
- Myanmar (Asia)
- Nepal (Asia)
- Bosnia and Herzegovina (Europe)
- Chile (Latin America)
- Iraq (The Middle East)
Section 3 of the submission assesses existing monitoring processes and remedies at the UN, and how these could be improved to guarantee substantive equality. This section also discusses the emergence of transformative reparations for women and girl victims of rights violations including sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV). The UN’s currently fragmented system must be reformed to effectively to monitor the accountability of states and other actors involved in conflict, and to provide redress for victims. Women and girls must be empowered to access remedy mechanisms that provide for transformative equality.
Recommendation 1: Understand the obligations in SCR 1325 as an integrated part of the legal framework on women, peace and security (the legal framework)
SCR 1325 and subsequent Security Council resolutions on WPS should be understood in light of the binding obligations and commitments reflected in their contents. This understanding of the Resolutions should integrate both the Security Council’s political commitment to act on women’s rights in conflict, and obligations from the legal framework. The key elements of the legal framework that uphold commitments held by all parties involved in conflicts include:
The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW);
Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW Committee) General Recommendation No. 30 on women in conflict prevention, conflict and post-conflict situations (CEDAW GR No. 30);
The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action 1995 (BPfA) notably its two critical areas of concern on Violence against Women and Women in Armed Conflict;
The UN General Assembly Outcome Document of its 23rd Special on Women 2000: Gender Equality, Development and Peace for the 21st Century 2000 (UNGA Outcome Document);
The UN Commission on the Status of Women Agreed Conclusions on the prevention and elimination of violence against women and girls 2013 (CSW Agreed Conclusions 2013).
Recommendation 2: Implement SCR 1325 and the legal framework by increasing women and girls’ meaningful participation and inclusion in the National Action Plan (NAP) process (design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation)
SCR 1325 National Action Plans (NAPs) must be created with the meaningful participation and inclusion of women and girls and their non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and allies. Women and girls, and their civil society organizations, should be empowered to jointly design, implement, monitor and evaluate NAPs together with governments, development partners, and other stakeholders, including private actors (especially non-state actors involved in post-conflict reconstruction and transitional justice situations).An active and engaged civil society plays a key role in ensuring that NAPs are substantively implemented. States must budget for adequate financial and human resources so that the following groups can shape, enforce and continually improve the NAP process: female political leaders, women’s and girls’ organizations, victims and survivors of conflict-related violence, and women, girls, men and boys affected by conflict.
Recommendation 3: To allow for transformative equality, which is provided for in the legal framework, especially under CEDAW, including by providing transformative remedies for women and girl victims of rights violations
To guarantee transformative equality, international, regional and national courts, judicial and quasi-judicial bodies, informal justice mechanisms and all relevant bodies with the power to provide remedies to victims of rights violations, including those in transitional justice situations, should apply transformative remedies that both provide meaningful redress for victims and survivors, and hold perpetrators fully accountable for their actions.
(see the full submission for Recommendations 3 and 4).
From Section 2:
Two factors seem to have the greatest impact on the effectiveness of the NAP process (design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation). These are: women and girls’ participation and inclusion; and government-buy in and civil society engagement on the legal framework, both via NAPs and other actions.
Participation is the only one of the “three Ps” of SCR 1325 (the other two being prevention and protection) to feature as a priority in every NAP in the case studies. While the NAPs focus on the other three pillars of SCR 1325 to varying degrees (the fourth pillar being relief and recovery) either explicitly or implicitly, the meaningful inclusion of women and girls is crucial to the NAP process. In Myanmar, the only country yet to implement a NAP, preliminary measures to promote women’s political participation include a National Strategic Action Plan for the Advancement of Women 2013-2022 (NSPAW).
Buy-in by governments and the involvement of civil society are crucial to implementing SCR 1325 and upholding the legal framework. In each case study, political will largely determines the adequacy of the design and content of NAPs. Civil society advocacy makes a difference in holding political leaders accountable to put NAPs into action, and to monitor and evaluate them. The levels of government buy-in and civil society engagement are affected by: the immediacy of conflict in a country; post-conflict political instability and leadership vacuums; and the coordination by the UN, development agencies, and civil society actors in supplementing government actions on WPS.
The relatively successful NAPs, like those of Nepal and Chile, are designed to work closely with development agencies and civil society at local and national levels, and across government. Consultation appears to best secure government buy-in where, as in Myanmar and Nepal, it is initiated at the beginning of the NAP process to involve all relevant stakeholders, including women’s ministries, national women’s machineries and women’s and girls’ organizations. In Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) the federal structure of the government coupled with official denial by the regional government hampered implementation of the first NAP. The second NAP of BiH shows promise by incorporating lessons learned from the CEDAW Committee and the country’s obligations under the legal framework. In Iraq, efforts to enforce the newly adopted NAP must be understood against a backdrop of renewed conflict from the recent military campaign by the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL). The DRC retains the title of the world’s ‘rape capital’ and the government’s inadequate implementation of its NAP indicates a lack of political will.
