Economic Rights and Social Justice: A Feminist Analysis of Some International Human Rights Conventions
Author(s)
Wright, Shelley
Abstract
Human rights as a topic of international law is itself very recent, although derived from debates and legal regimes within nation states dating back to at least the late eighteenth century. Women have also attempted to join in this discourse and again, within the last twenty years, some, mainly white European women, have played some role in putting women’s interests and needs onto the international agenda. Up until now, when talking about “women’s rights” or human rights which specifically and expressly include women, the particular aspect of human rights which has been chosen has been the discourse of equality. The aim of this paper is therefore to put modem international “human rights” into an historical context and to discuss some existing human rights provisions and the problems they pose for women.
