About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

47 Harv. Int'l L.J. 1 (2006)
Women's September 11th: Rethinking the International Law of Conflict

handle is hein.journals/hilj47 and id is 9 raw text is: VOLUME 47, NUMBER 1, WINTER 2006 Women's September 11 th: Rethinking the International Law of Conflict- Catharine A. MacKinnon** The configuration of acts and actors of September 11, 2001 is not one that international law, centered on states, has been primarily structured to ad- dress.' Neither was most of men's violence against women in view when the laws of war, international humanitarian law,2 and international human rights guarantees were framed.3 The formal and substantive parallels between the * For permission to reprint this Article, please contact the author directly. ** Elizabeth A. Long Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School, and Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, Cal., 2005-2006. These thoughts benefited greatly from exchanges surrounding their delivery in prior forms at the Northwestern University Law School (Apr. 17, 2002); the Law and Terrorism Conference, Hofstra Law School, Nice, France (July 17, 2002); the Barbara Aronstein Black Lecture, Columbia University Law School (Sept. 17, 2002); the Hofstra Law School (Dec. 5, 2002); the Mellon Lecture, University of Pittsburgh Law School (Apr. 14, 2003); the Ralph Spielman Lecture, Bucknell University (Sept. 25, 2003); Kalamazoo College (Oct. 4, 2004); the Dewey Lecture, University of Chicago Law School (Oct. 9, 2003); the University of Denver Sturm Col- lege of Law (Mar. 10, 2005); Stanford Law School (Apr. 14, 2005); the University of Paris X, Nanterre, France (Golden Gate Law School) (June 29, 2005); the New Scholarship in International Law Workshop, Harvard Law School (Oct. 6, 2005); and the University of San Francisco (Nov. 3, 2005). I thank all these audiences for their engagement. Some parts appeared in Catharine A. MacKinnon, State of Emergency: Who Will Declare War on Terrorism against Women?, WOMEN'S REVIEW OF BOOKS, Mar. 2002, at 7-8. Jos6 Alvarez, Tal Becker, Tom Bender, Karima Bennoune, Christine Chinkin, George Fletcher, Linda Gardner, Jack Goldsmith, Ryan Goodman, Jack Greenberg, Kent Harvey, Laura Beth Nielsen, Jessica Neuwirth, Mary Ellen O'Connell, Michael Reisman, Diane Rosenfeld, Abe Sofaer, and Eric Stein generously con- tended with prior drafts. Comments from three anonymous reviewers were exceptionally useful. The University of Michigan Law Library, Melanie Markowitz, and especially Ron Levy provided research assistance. Emma Cheuse and Anna Baldwin contributed superb technical help. I am deeply grateful for all of their support. The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences provided an idyllic as well as stimu- lating setting in which to write about these horrific realities. 1. This obvious observation about international law since at least the Treaty of Westphalia, Oct. 24, 1648, 1 Consol. T.S. 198, is illuminated in the present setting by, among others, Antonio Cassese, Terror- ism Is Also Disrupting Some Crucial Legal Categories of International Law, 12 EUR. J. INT'L L. 993, 993-98 (2001); Robert K. Goldman, Certain Legal Questions and Issues Raised by the September 1 1th Attacks, 9 HUM. RTS. BRIEF 2 (2001), available at http://www.wcl.american.edu/hrbrief/09/lsept.cfm (last visited Nov. 17, 2005); and Noah Feldman, Choices ofLaw, Choices ofWar, 25 HARV. J.L. & PuB. POL'Y 457 (2002). 2. Of this list, international humanitarian law has the best facial history, long prohibiting some vio- lence against women in wartime in very clear terms. See, e.g., Francis Lieber, Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field (The Lieber Code), U.S. War Dep't General Orders No. 100, § 2, art. 37 (Apr. 24, 1863), reprinted in THE LAWS OF ARMED CONFLICTS: A COLLECTION OF CONVENTIONS, RESOLUTIONS AND OTHER DOCUMENTS 3, 3 (Dietrich Schindler ed., 2004) (The United States ac- knowledge and protect, in hostile countries occupied by them . .. the persons of the inhabitants, espe- cially those of women; and the sacredness of domestic relations.); Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Aug. 12, 1949, art. 3, 6 U.S.T. 3516, 75 U.N.T.S. 287. 3. Attempts to get the drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to consider women's human- ity are analyzed in MARY ANN GLENDON, A WORLD MADE NEW: ELEANOR ROOSEVELT AND THE UNI- VERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS 111-12, 164 (2001). A particularly telling example is the

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most