"Human Rights and the Politics of Representation: Is There a Role for International Law?"

This chapter focuses on the targeting of States by NGOs within global human rights arenas. It examines some questions in the limited context of the social movement for the more effective promotion and protection of international human rights, and even more specifically, the human rights of women. It seeks to show how this movement, one of the most powerful social forces since 1945, has been used by another social movement, the international women's movement, to create networks that confront the global subordination of women, and how this has challenged the boundaries, concepts, and structures of human rights law, and forced changes in the international legal regime. It concludes that through this demand for representation, the presumed role for international law has been enhanced, but that nevertheless the legal regime for the protection of women's human rights remains a blunt instrument with which to combat the forces of globalization from above.