Female Subjects of Public International Law: Human Rights and the Exotic Other Female
Author(s)
Engle, Karen
Abstract
For centuries, several societies primarily located in Muslim Africa have engaged in a practice that is often, perhaps euphemistically, referred to as female circumcision. As the practice has become more widely known throughout the world, many have begun to talk about it as an international human rights violation. The last decade has paved the way for this kind of analysis, as public international law has expanded at least formally to include issues specifically pertaining to women. With this expansion, a body of literature has developed that advocates women’s rights as international human rights. Three broad approaches have emerged within that literature which I have labeled doctrinalist, institutionalist and external critique. The three approaches represent different feminist attitudes toward law, ranging from liberal to radical, as well as different approaches to rights discourse in general and to human rights law in particular. In this essay, I explore some of the ways that these different approaches confront, or would confront, clitoridectomy. I do so with an eye toward the various notions of women’s subjectivity the approaches display.
