On December 10

On this day in ...
... 1931, the Nobel Peace Prize was bestowed on Jane Addams; she was a co-winner with Nicholas Murray Butler. Nobel Committee Chair Halvdan Koht said in his presentation speech:

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'America helped – perhaps it would be more correct to say compelled – Europe to create a League of Nations which would provide a firm basis for peaceful coexistence among nations. It was a crushing blow that America herself did not join this organization, and without doubt her failure to do so contributed largely to the failure of the League of Nations to live up to expectations. We still see too much of the old rivalries of power politics. Had the United States joined, she would have been a natural mediator between many of the conflicting forces in Europe, for America is more interested in peace in Europe than in lending her support to any particular country.
'It must be said, however, that the United States is not the power for peace in the world that we should have wished her to be. She has sometimes let herself drift into the imperialism which is the natural outcome of industrial capitalism in our age. In many ways she is typical of the wildest form of capitalist society, and this has inevitably left its mark on American politics.
'But America has at the same time fostered some of the most spirited idealism on earth.'

A longtime advocate of peace, suffrage, and measures to alleviate poverty, Addams was emblematic of that idealism – of "the work which women can do peace fraternity among nations," Koht continued. But Addams, who was then 71 years old, was admitted to a hospital in Baltimore on this day in 1931, and so was unable to attend the ceremony in Oslo, Norway. She would die 4 years later in the city where she had long lived, Chicago. We IntLawGrrls honor her as a transnational foremother.

(Prior December 10 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)

'Nuff said

(Taking context-optional note of thought-provoking quotes)

'I hate with a murderous hatred those men who, having lived their youth, would send into war other youth, not lived, unfulfilled, to fight and die for them; the pride and cowardice of those old men, making their wars that boys must die.'

–  Quote attributed to one Mary Roberts Rinehart (right), at, of all places, as a tag line of a page on a what-does-this-word-mean website. Further digging found that Rinehart, a Pennsylvania-born author who lived from 1876 to 1958, was so well known as a mystery writer that some called her "the American Agatha Christie." Among Rinehart's contributions to popular culture? A character that inspired another writer to create Batman, as well as a catchphrase venerated in mystery lore:

'The butler did it.'

On November 25

On this day in ...
... 1867 (145 years ago today), Alfred Nobel patented dynamite. Born in Sweden 34 years earlier, Nobel had begun his career as an industrialist, a maker of bridges and other structures – the construction of which often required blasting through rock, a requirement that led Nobel to the experiments out of which dynamite was created. On this day he secured U.S. patent number 78,317 for his invention, the destructive power of which he continued to improve. ( photo credit) Used in times of war and peace alike, the invention left him with an immense fortune. In the will he signed on this same date in 1895 in Paris (28 years to the day after he'd obtained the patent), Nobel funded the establishment of annual Nobel Prizes, to be apportioned as follows:

'one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics; one part to the person who shall have made the most important chemical discovery or improvement; one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine; one part to the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction; and one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.'

This development was due in no small part to an abundance of correspondence with Bertha Sophie Felicita von Suttner (right), who worked briefly as a secretary for Nobel, and then, as detailed in this fascinating account, wrote Nobel frequently, advocating her campaign for global peace. (photo credit) In 1905, 9 years after Nobel's death, she would become the 1st woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

(Prior November 25 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)

Welcoming Irene Ten Cate

It's our great pleasure to welcome Irene M. Ten Cate (leftt) as an IntLawGrrls contributor.
Irene is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Marquette University Law School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she teaches in the areas of civil procedure and business associations.
Interested in the interplay between the functions of adjudication and the process of judging, Irene focuses her research on how the presence or absence of adjudicative lawmaking affects adjudication in international commercial and investment arbitration.
Irene earned her J.D. from Columbia Law School in New York and her LL.B. degree from the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. She spent two years as an associate-in-law at Columbia and more than six years as a litigation and international dispute resolution associate in the New York office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. She also interned with the Secretariat of the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris and worked as a corporate associate in the Brussels office of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton.
In her introductory post below, Irene surveys studies demonstrating the paucity of women among arbitrators appointed in arbitrations administered by the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes.
Irene dedicates her post to Aletta Jacobs, portrayed in the sculpture below right, about which Irene writes:

'I frequently passed by this statue during my high school years in the university town of Groningen. Aletta Jacobs (1854-1929) started the world’s first birth control clinic, played a key role in the Dutch and international suffrage movements, and was actively involved in women’s peace organizations. But in the Netherlands, she is best known for being the first woman to graduate from a Dutch university. She needed special permission from Prime Minister Johan Rudolph Thorbecke to enroll in medical school and, a few years later, to sit for exams. This dedication is also an expression of support for all the courageous girls who are fighting the battle for equal access to education today.'

Today Jacobs joins other inspiring women on IntLawGrrls' foremothers page.
Heartfelt welcome!

On September 14

On this day in ..
... 1882 (130 years ago today), Winnifred Sprague Mason was born in Chicago. Her father, William Mason, was a member of Congress noted for his support of labor rights and his pacifist stance during World War II. Upon his death in 1922 his daughter, who had worked as his secretary and was known as Winnifred Huck (left) after marriage, was elected to serve out his term,   but she lost her bid to be elected in her own right. (photo credit) Huck was the 3d woman to serve as a Member of Congress. Though her term lasted only 14 weeks, she spoke out:

'Her most noteworthy address as a House Member was delivered on January 16, 1923, when she appealed to her colleagues to support a constitutional amendment to hold a direct popular vote for future United States’ involvement in any war requiring the armed forces to be sent overseas. Determined to demonstrate the lack of necessity for war, Huck declared, "In a country where the people control the government there is no opportunity for a war to originate."'

(Prior September 14 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)

Look On! Fireflies in World War II Japan

(Look On! takes occasional note of noteworthy productions)

Grave of the Fireflies is one of the best antiwar movies ever made, in my opinion.
Released in Japan as Hotaru no Haka, Fireflies was made in 1988 by Studio Ghibli, cofounded by Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. (Other animated films they've made include Spirited Away (2001), My Neighbour Totoro (1988), and Nausicaä (1984).)
Fireflies is directed by Takahata, who has a distinctive animation style. His movies, which are often touching and nostalgic, include Only Yesterday (1991), Pom Poko (1994), and the hilarious My Neighbour the Yamadas (1999).

(credit)

Undoubtedly, Grave of the Fireflies is his masterpiece.
The film tells the story of two children. Seita, a 14-year-old boy, and his little sister, 4-year-old Setsuko. Their story is set against the firebombing during World War II of the city of Kobe (which would later suffer from a devastating earthquake). The mother of the children is caught in the bombing and dies. The children move in with their aunt. However, as the food supplies diminish, the aunt becomes increasingly resentful, and the children move out into an abandoned  shelter. Seita has no option but to steal food but his supplies of rice are insufficient. Setsuko slowly dies of malnutrition – just as the announcement comes of Japan's unconditional surrender to the United States
The film was based on a semi-autobiographical novel of the same name, written, by Akiyuki Nosaka, as an apology to his little sister who died during WWII.
Fireflies stirs thoughts about the plight of children during conflict.
Jumping to mind is the International Criminal Court case of Thomas Lubanga, recently sentenced to 14 years of imprisonment for his role in enlisting and conscripting children in the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Child soldiers in Africa, forcibly conscripted in some cases, sexually violated in others, have become a focus of prosecutions at the ICC.
Grave of the Fireflies shows other hardships faced by children due to war and conflict. Seita and Setsuko are orphaned, homeless, starved, and rejected by an adult population. Their story is a reminder of the innocent lives destroyed in the senseless pursuit of territorial expansion.
Definitely worth watching.

(Cross-posted at Human Rights Film Diary blog)

On July 25

On this day in ...

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... 1947 (65 years ago today), Mary Ware Dennett died at a nursing home in New York, not far from its border with Massachusetts. She'd been born Mary Coffin Ware in the latter state, in Worcester, 75 years earlier; her extended family included 2 social reformers, with whom she lived at times. Graduated with honors in 1891 from the School of Art and Design in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, she began teaching art, then married an architect and started a design firm with him. Following 3 difficult childbirths the couple endeavored to prevent pregnancy without benefit of contraceptive advice. Divorce came in 1912. Needing to support her children, she began work outside the home -- as Field Secretary of the Massachusetts Suffrage Association. Thus began a lifelong career of activism for women's suffrage and other rights (in particular, for sex education and reproductive health), and against militarism. In 1928, Dennett was convicted of distributing obscene materials on account of a frank pamphlet that she initially wrote for her own adolescent boys, The Sex Side of Life (1918); in 1930, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2d Circuit reversed. Case materials in United States v. Dennett are archived here.

(Prior July 25 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)

On May 5

On this day in ...

... 1936, Marianne Hainisch (right) died in Vienna at age 97. She'd married an industrialist at age 18 and borne 2 children by the time she was 22. (photo credit) Struck by an educated friend's difficulty in finding work after her husband got sick, publicly insisted that Vienna start schools for girls -- a demand that bore fruit when a bank donated money for such a school. She wrote numerous articles and books on women's issues. Hainisch subsequently founded or cofounded the League for Extended Women's Education, the Federation of Austrian Women's Organisations, and the Austrian Women's Party, and she also served as Honorary Vice-President of the International Council of Women. Along with Baroness Bertha von Suttner, who also lived in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Hainisch was active in the early 20th C. peace movement. Having also spearheaded the observance of Mother's Day in Austria, Hainisch herself was the mother of that country's 1st President.

(Prior May 5 posts (Prior May 5 posts are here, here, here, and here, and here.)

Introducing Jennifer Moore

It's our great pleasure to welcome Jennifer Moore (left) as an IntLawGrrls contributor.
Jenny is Regents Professor of Law at the University of New Mexico School of Law in Albuquerque. She also served as the university's Director of Peace Studies, an undergraduate curriculum, from 2004 to 2006. Her law school courses include Human Rights, Immigration Law, International Law, International Legal Problems, and Refugee and Asylum Law, fields in which she's also published.
Along with Karen Musalo and Richard A. Boswell, both professors at California-Hastings College of the Law, Jenny's a co-author of Refugee Law and Policy: A Comparative and International Approach. This 1st-ever casebook on the subject is now in its 4th edition.
Before entering academia in 1995, Jenny worked for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, as an associate protection officer in West Africa and then as a legal officer in Washington, D.C. In 2002-03, Jenny was in Tanzania on a Fulbright Scholarship, where she taught international law at the University of Dar es Salaam, and also planned and facilitated human rights workshops for Burundian in refugee camps.
These experiences formed the background for Jenny's forthcoming book, Humanitarian Law in Action within Africa, which she describes in her introductory post below.
Her interest in refugee issues began in college – she worked as a research assistant for the Refugee Policy Group after earning her bachelor's degree from Amherst. While a law student at Harvard, Jenny spent a summer conducting field research for Catholic Relief Services on the protection of Salvadoran refugees in Honduras. In summer 2000, she and her father interviewed a range of Croatians and expatriates working in Croatia for the War-Torn Societies Project International.
Jenny dedicates her post to 2 women:
► One is her paternal grandmother, Adeline Nichols Moore (1906-1992), pictured at left in the circa-1940s family photo below. Moore was an artist and 1928 alumna of Smith College who, "as a student at the Sorbonne in Paris was pressed into service to translate for Charles Lindbergh," when the aviator completed his solo transatlantic flight in May 1927. Jenny writes:

'Gran died while I was in West Africa, pregnant with my first daughter, Kyra Elizabeth. Addie Moore was a painter and a sculptress, who taught all her grandchildren about the stars. She became a Quaker in her early twenties.'

► Jenny also honors her godmother, Louise Rexford Wilson (1906-1995), pictured next to Addie Moore in the photo. In 1941 Wilson, the mother of an infant daughter, joined with her husband and directed a Civilian Public Service camp, at which conscientious objectors worked in lieu of World War II military service. She also was the author of a foreword to a collection of letters. Of Wilson, Jenny writes:

'Aunt Lou passed away shortly before I started teaching law, and just a few years before my daughter, Tessa Irene, was born. She was my grandmother’s dearest friend, and like Gran, Lou came to embrace Quaker teachings. My mother, Katherine, and I both often remind ourselves that Lou is our model for growing old with wit, wisdom, grace, and style. May it be so.'

Today both women join others honored at IntLawGrrls' foremothers page.
Heartfelt welcome!

On January 6

On this day in ...
... 1883, Eugénie Niboyet died in Paris, 87 years after her birth, as Eugénie Mouchon, in the southern French city of Montpellier. She grew up in a Bonapartist family, a number of whose members were jailed or died in battle. She married an attorney and gave birth to a son. When the family moved to Paris in 1829, she began writing and became active in feminist and social-justice causes. Niboyet was a founder of, from 1844 to 1845, La Paix des Deux Mondes, France's 1st pacifist newspaper, and, in 1848, La Voix des Femmes, France's 1st feminist daily newspaper, which had a short but vocal life during the tumult of that latter year. (credit for image captioned "Eugénie Niboyet au Club Féminin") She's also known for her 1863 volume, Le vrai livre des femmes.

(Prior January 6 posts are here, here, here, and here.)

Civilians & the collateral damage rule

(Delighted to welcome back alumna Valerie Epps, who contributes this guest post on her paper entitled Civilian Casualties in Modern Warfare: The Death of the Collateral Damage Rule, which she'll be presenting as part of a panel at 9 a.m. this Saturday, October 22, at International Law Weekend in New York)

Members of the armed forces are sent off to war to kill enemy combatants. They are not sent to kill civilians.
We permit the “combatant’s privilege” (soldiers being allowed to kill enemy soldiers) in part because we understand that although civilians may be killed or injured in warfare, this will only happen occasionally when such death and injury is “incidental” to a legitimate attack on a military object. (credit for 2011 photo of U.S. Navy attack against Libya) Under the laws of war, civilians may never be targeted.
The collateral damage rule, as set out in Article 51(5)(b) of Protocol Additional I to the 1949 Geneva Conventions on the laws of war, prohibits

'[a]n attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.'

The collateral damage rule is meant to give protection to civilians in time of war in contexts where military and civilian targets are interwoven.
The latter statement, reflecting the usual assessment of the collateral damage rule, may simply be a method for tricking us into thinking that ethical military commanders, by following the rule, will, in fact, avoid all but incidental damage to civilians. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The nature of warfare has changed fundamentally over the last two centuries. Once inter-state warfare was a predominate type of armed conflict. Now, by far the most prevalent form of conflict is intra-state, or internal, armed conflict. It currently makes up about 90 percent of all armed conflicts.
At the same time, the ratio of military-to-civilian-war-related deaths has undergone a radical transformation. Stanley B. Greenberg and Robert O. Boorstin wrote in their 2001 article, People On War: Civilians in the Line of Fire:

'[I]n World War I, nine soldiers were killed for every civilian life lost. In today’s wars, it is estimated that ten civilians die for every soldier or fighter killed in battle.'

There is much discussion of the accuracy of various proposed ratios -- 10 to 1, 9 to 1, 8 to 1 -- and considerable debate on who should be counted in both military war-related deaths and civilian war-related deaths. Yet no one doubts that in almost all modern wars, civilian deaths outnumber military deaths often by several multiples. While it is true that intra-state wars are generally far less deadly than international wars, the ratio of civilian to military deaths remains disproportionally weighted to civilian deaths.
It may thus be concluded that the collateral damage rule, whatever its intention, is not fulfilling its purpose of protecting civilians in war time.
What should be done, when we find that a legal rule cannot or does not achieve its purposes?
All law tolerates some level of violations and lack of enforcement, but in this case, the problems go deeper. We sense that the world is not about to adopt a rule of pacifism, although that would be the simplest and most effective method of protecting everyone from the devastations of war. Nor doe we sense that the armed forces will completely draw back from attacking military targets if there is even the slightest chance that civilians could be killed or injured.
So what modest suggestions can be made to assist, in some small way, the fulfillment of the collateral damage rule’s wish to protect civilians?
► First, we need to acknowledge that we have a problem.
Wars are not just killing military personnel with a few civilians being killed incidentally. They are killing more civilians than members of the armed forces.
► Next, we could suggest that commanders in the field have Rules of Engagement that restrict severely the amount of acceptable civilian casualties.
Such an approach has had a dramatic effect in reducing civilian casualties in places like Afghanistan, although the military rank and file often protest such rules. (credit for 2008 Associated Press photo at left, by Alauddin Khan, of funeral of victim of suicide bombing in Kandahar, Afghanistan)
► Above all, we need a mandatory system for recording civilian deaths and injuries in war time. (IntLawGrrls' posts on this issue here.)
Although the Geneva Conventions require the recording of details of military personnel who die, are injured, captured or are missing, the requirements for keeping similar statistics for civilians are much less robust and many states do not keep any such statistics. In September 2011, the Oxford Research Group launched the Charter for the Recognition of Every Casualty of Armed Violence, which sets out the requirements for the recording of every casualty of conflict throughout the world. This is bold and necessary step to begin to bring us closer to protecting civilians in warfare, the goal of the collateral damage rule -- a rule that, at the moment, is more often breached than observed.

Welcome hand for low-income women

Earlier this week I had the pleasure of acquaintance with America's 1st elected Congresswoman -- or rather, with many good women who do good works in her good name.
Her name was Jeannette Rankin. In 1916, when she was 36 years told and national women's enfranchisement was still 4 years away, voters in her native state of Montana chose Rankin, the field secretary of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, to represent them in Congress. She served from 1917 to 1919 and again from 1941 to 1943. In both of those periods the United States entered a global war, and in both, Congresswoman Rankin cast a rare vote of "No."
Her activism persisted throughout her life: she served as field secretary for the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (an organization whose other representatives included IntLawGrrls foremothers Jane Addams and Emily Greene Balch), and at age 87 she and 5,000 others in the Jeannette Rankin Brigade marched against Vietnam War.
By that time Rankin lived not in Montana, but in northeast Georgia, on a farm not far my own new home in Athens. There, as described in a biographical booklet by Dorothy Sams Newland, Rankin cofounded the Georgia Peace Society, fought naval spending bills that brought funds to her region, won a libel suit against a Macon paper that called her a Communist, traveled widely, and started girls' and boys' clubs.
On her death in 1973, Rankin left a $16,000 bequest, and on this the Athens-based Jeannette Rankin Foundation was built. (logo credit)
As I learned at the group's annual dinner this week, the Foundation focuses on a segment of society often overlooked: it gives scholarships to low-income women over 35 years of age who are pursuing college or vocational degrees.
In 1978, the fledgling Foundation awarded $500 to Barbara Dixon, a local widow who was studying nursing and caring for her young children. Since that small beginning, it's given well over $1 million in grants, to more than 600 women from all over the United States.
Some Jeannette Rankin Scholars were at the dinner: Dixon herself; another local woman, Latrena Stokes, who gave the benediction; and Patricia Garcia of Utah, a recent geology graduate who talked of her field work bringing fresh water to communities in Mexico and Nepal.
The Scholars' stories -- no less than that of Rankin and the women who devote time and energy to the Foundation -- inspired. Learn more about this most worthy nonprofit here.

On July 6

On this day in ...
... 1920, Elise Biorn-Hansen was born in Oslo, Norway; she and her family immigrated to the United States when she was a child. A Quaker, she embraced pacifism in horror at the violence wrought during World War II, and met her husband at a peace meeting. As Dr. Elise Boulding (right), she would teach and write about peace, developing the United States' 1st Peace Studies curriculum while a member of the sociology faculty at Dartmouth University. (photo credit) An activist leader in groups including the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and the International Peace Research Association, and a participant in U.N. work through UNESCO and the University of the United Nations, Boulding received the 2000 Courage of Conscience Award from the Peace Abbey, Sherborn, Massachusetts. She died on June 24, 2010, just shy of her 90th birthday.

(Prior July 6 posts are here, here, here, and here.)

On February 10

On this day in ...
... 1983, governmental officials signed an agreement that permitted the United States to test, in Canada, its military equipment, including cruise missiles, which may carry nuclear warheads. As a result, "protest demonstrations broke out in numerous cities" in Canada, "and a women's peace camp was established near the cruise test range in Cold Lake, Alberta." (map credit)

(Prior February 10 posts are here, here, and here.)

How 'bout a women's legal history trial?

A prince is about to stand trial for murder.

He's Hamlet, fatal assailant of the meddlesome man destined (if Ophelia had her way) to become his father-in-law.

At issue: given the welter of woe in which Shakespeare situated the troubled Dane, is the prince mentally competent to face judgment?

"The Trial of Hamlet" will take place January 31 at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. (here for tickets & image credit) Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who created the play, will preside. A jury including celebs like Helen Hunt will decide.

Karen Wada of the Los Angeles Times properly places the staging in a Court tradition, writing that "[i]n 1987, for instance, three high court jurists heard arguments over who really wrote Shakespeare's plays." (On continuing high court furor over the question, see this article by Jess Bravin.)

Blog readers no doubt also are familiar with the many trials of this sort staged by the American Bar Association.

So here's a thought:

How 'bout retrying some signature event of women's legal history? (And see here and here.)

Jumping to mind are 2, both involving IntLawGrrls foremothers:

► The 1873 conviction of Susan B. Anthony (by a U.S. Supreme Court Justice) for the offense of illegal voting.

► Any number of 1917 jailings -- at times brutal -- of Alice Paul, Lucy Burns (left), and their National Woman's Party colleagues for the "direct action campaign" against U.S. entry into World War I. As IntLawGrrls alumna Catherine Lanctot has posted, they took that campaign to "the very doorstep of the President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson."

Additional nominations welcome.

On December 11

On this day in ...
... 1920 (90 years ago today), feminist and pacifist writer Olive Schreiner (left) died in South Africa, 65 years after her birth in what is now Lesotho. She was the 9th of 12 children born to a poor missionary family. A voracious reader of social theory, early on she rejected religion, and further

rejected the accepted stereotypical gender roles and espoused an equality of shared labour between men and women.

After working for years as a governess, Schreiner sailed to England, where her semi-autobiographical novel, The Story of an African Farm (1882), was published under a male pseudonym "because of a contemporary prejudice against women authors"; she revealed her identity in the 2d edition 9 years later. (credit for circa 1909 photo) Back in South Africa, she married and gave birth to a daughter, who died within in a day, sending Schreiner into deep depression. During the Boer War, Schreiner lost all her property and was interned for a year on account of her support for the Afrikaner side. Her Women and Labour (1911) is described as a "feminist 'bible' of the early twentieth century"; another late-in-life work argued in favor of rights for blacks in South Africa.

(Prior December 11 posts are here, here, and here.)

On September 5

On this day in ...

... 1915 (95 years ago today), as trench warfare dragged on across Europe, about 40 delegates from 11 countries opened a 6-day meeting, known as the Zimmerwald Conference in recognition of the Swiss municipality where it was held. Among those attending this 1st First International Socialist Conference were the exiled Russians Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky. The meeting would end on September 11 with a manifesto that demanded an immediate end to World War I:

[W]orkers within each country should try by any means necessary to convert the current capitalist struggle into a more enlightened one: an international workers’ revolution or civil war 'between the classes' that would spread throughout Europe, and eventually the world.

It further praised certain comrades, among them Rosa Luxemburg (above, near left), Clara Zetkin (far left), and Louise Saumoneau. (credit for 1911 photo)


(Prior September 5 posts are here, here, and here.)

On March 8

On this day in ...
... 1914, French feminist, socialist, and pacifist Louise Saumoneau led the 1st International Women’s Day commemoration in Paris, used to organize for socialism. Some 2,000 women and men marched and listened to speeches by Socialist Party leaders. Born in 1875 and employed from a young age as a seamstress, Saumoneau had founded a women's movement at age 24. Like her German counterpart Clara Zetkin, Saumoneau had little use for what she called "feminist confusionism"; that is, focus on issues like dowry. Instead, Saumoneau concentrated her efforts in building a working women's movement that also paid heed to the situation of working men. By a decades-old resolution of the United Nations, as we've posted here and here, today marks the global International Women's Day.

(Prior March 8 posts are here, here, and here)

On December 11

On this day in ...

... 1849 (160 years ago today), Ellen Key (right) was born in Sweden. An advocate of child-center education, women's suffrage, and feminism, she began writing in her 30s. Her "advanced ideas on sex, love and marriage, and moral conduct had wide influence." Works available in English --on the availability of which The New York Times reported as early as 1913 -- include War, Peace, and the Future: A Consideration of Nationalism and Internationalism, and of the Relation of Women to War (1916). (credit for portrait of Key by Hannah Hirsch-Pauli) Among Key's many notable quotes, here's one exemplifying her views on teaching; another, her views on war:

Education can give you a skill, but a liberal education can give you dignity.

Everything, everything in war is barbaric.... But the worst barbarity of war is that it forces men collectively to commit acts against which individually they would revolt with their whole being.

(Prior December 11 posts are here and here.)

How to End Violence?

So much of what we international lawyers do is aimed at preventing, ending, or responding to violence. Wouldn't it be lovely to make that aspect of our jobs obsolete?
Unfortunately, as illustrated by IntLawGrrls' numerous writings on the subject (including Naomi's post earlier today), violence—by states, by groups, by individuals—endures as a pervasive plague in almost every society. International legal organizations, states, and the lawyers who assist them try to prevent or constrain state violence through norms on aggression and the use of force, the conduct of war or armed conflict, human rights violations, or international crimes. But many civilians also experience violence perpetrated by non-state actors (insurgent groups, paramilitary units, terrorists, and family members). Often, they are targeted, at least in part, because of their gender, age, race, religion, sexual orientation, nationality, or other status.

Gender-Based Violence
This week marked the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (25 November; prior post). Rashida Manjoo, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women (on whom we’ve posted here), issued a statement outlining plans for her mandate. Manjoo called for “timely and focused attention” on three themes:

►reparations to women for wrongs committed in contexts of peace, conflict, post-conflict and transitional justice settings;
►prevention strategies including those which promote women’s empowerment and engagement in challenging patriarchal interpretations of norms, values and rights; and
►multiple, intersecting and aggravated forms of discrimination affecting women and leading to increased levels of violence and limitation or denial of their human rights.

Roles of Men
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued parallel statements to mark the day as well. Interestingly, one of his statements focused on the roles of men in ending violence against women. The statement recognizes that men and boys must also be engaged, committed, and involved in efforts to end gender-based violence. Secretary-General Ban announced the launching of a network of male leaders charged with taking proactive steps, in collaboration with existing women’s organizations, to address gender-based violence. The new network is part of the “UNiTE to End Violence Against Women” initiative he launched in 2008.

As I launch this Network, I call on men and boys everywhere to join us. Break the silence. When you witness violence against women and girls, do not sit back. Act. Advocate. Unite to change the practices and attitudes that incite, perpetrate and condone this violence. Violence against women and girls will not be eradicated until all of us – men and boys – refuse to tolerate it….

According to a UN Press release,

he cited positive actions that men are already taking, such as judges whose decisions have paved the way for fighting abuse in the workplace, networks of men who counsel male perpetrators of violence, and national leaders who have publicly committed to leading the movement of men to break the silence.

Such efforts must begin early and locally in homes, schools, religious and community institutions. Educators and community activists must work with young people to build cross-gender and cross-cultural understanding, respect, and non-violent approaches to problem-solving. National governments must prevent the economic, social, and cultural rights violations that intersect with the causes and consequences of violence. And, at the international level, political and military leaders, diplomats, and multinational business leaders also must show that they, too, can learn such lessons. They can do so by promoting and adhering to laws against aggression, the threat or use of weapons of mass destruction, targeting of civilian populations, and the reckless trade in small arms.

(Photo: Leymah Glowee, Liberian peacebuilding activist and a subject of the documentary film, "Pray the Devil Back to Hell," about women peace activists. Photo Credit: Robin Holland.)