Shadows across the Path 463A second major contribution of feminists has been to raise the profi le of
specifi c issues in international law that are of special interest to women.
Th ese include domestic violence, which had largely been outside the pur-
view even of international human- rights law. Another issue is human traf-
fi cking, sometimes done in conjunction with forced prostitution or sexual
slavery. Th e law of armed confl ict has been another topic of intense concern.
Th ere has been criticism that rape and other forms of sexual violence are not
expressly identifi ed in the laws of war as war crimes.
If feminists have looked outward to the world at large in the quest to ad-
vance the position of women, they have also looked inward, to international
law itself. Th e concern here has taken two principal forms. One is a cam-
paign to raise the profi le of women within the international legal profession.
Charlesworth and Chinkin have been outspoken in their contention that
sexism is a “pervasive, structural problem” in international law. It has even
been contended that international law itself, as a system of ideas and rules, is
masculine or patriarchal in nature. Charlesworth has suggested that she
endorses this thesis, by her assertion that international law “implicitly ex-
cludes women by assuming a male norm.” International law has been ac-
cused of making, in general, too sharp a dichotomy between the public and
private spheres of life. Th is is condemned as “an ideological construct ratio-
nalizing the exclusion of women from the sources of power.” It is also im-
portant, it has been argued, for international law to take account of the ac-
t ions of nonstate actors, as wel l as of governments, into accou nt if oppression
against women is to be eff ectively ended.
More generally yet, Charlesworth, in the spirit of the critical legal studies
writers, has voiced a dark suspicion of the very idea of “neutral and impar-
tial standards,” on the ground that they are merely “synonyms for male
perspectives.” It has been contended, somewhat vaguely, that “the funda-
mentals of legal persuasion” need to be reexamined. Trad it iona l i nterna-
tional legal thought has been accused of “simply [reproducing] a masculine
type of reasoning” In contrast, contended Charlesworth, “[f]eminist meth-
ods emphasize conversation and dialogue rather than the production of a
single, triumphant truth.” In a similar vein, there is opposition to “the
or ga ni za tion of legal materials in predetermined, watertight categories.”
Th is has included criticism of liberal, rights- based approaches to interna-
tional legal issues.