Abbreviation | IAWJ |
---|---|
Founded | 1991 |
Headquarters | Washington, D.C., United States |
Susan Glazebrook | |
Immediate Past President | Vanessa Ruiz |
Vice-Presidents | Binta Nyako Margarita Beatriz Luna |
Executive Director | Christie Jones |
Award(s) | Bolch Prize for the Rule of Law 2022 |
Website | www |
The International Association of Women Judges (IAWJ) is a non-profit non governmental organization founded in 1991 whose members are judges from around the world committed to equal justice for women.
The IAWJ was founded in 1991 after fifty women judges from around the world were invited to participate in the tenth anniversary meeting of the United States National Association of Women Judges. [1] It was decided that gender discrimination in the judiciary would be easier to combat with the forming of an international alliance. In October 1991, women judges in 15 countries approved the inaugural constitution of the IAWJ. [1] Its first meeting was held in October 1992, bringing together 82 judges from 42 different countries in San Diego. The issue that interested them most was family violence. [2] Women judges sponsored workshops and conferences around the world to teach about the prevalence of domestic violence, how to prevent it, and how to enact laws to define it as a crime with penalties. [2] The IAWJ also took on a project to educate judges on how to apply international human rights instruments to cases affecting women in local courts. [2]
The IAWJ's first president was Arline Pacht. [2] In May 1994, it held a conference in Rome on domestic violence. [2]
In 2010, when the UK's Baroness Hale was elected President of IAWJ, it had over 4,000 members from over 90 countries. [1] By 2017, it had over 5,000 members. [3] By 2019, it had over 6,000 members. [4]
The IAWJ is based in Washington DC and is a non-profit, non-governmental organisation. Its members represent all levels of the judiciary worldwide. It seeks to pioneer judicial education programs to advance human rights, uproot gender bias from judicial systems and promote women's access to courts. [5] It has a ten-member Board of Directors and a seven-member Executive Council. [5]
The IAWJ holds a biennial conference, where new board members are elected. [6] [5] The 2023 IAWJ general conference will be held Marrakesh, Morocco from May 11–15. [7]
The IAWJ works on six main themes: advancing women's leadership in law, ending gender based violence, strengthening judicial integrity, fighting sextortion, promoting inclusive justice, and combatting human trafficking. [8]
The IAWJ is credited with creating the term "sextortion" in 2009 to describe the pervasive form of sexual exploitation that occurs when people in positions of authority seek to extort sexual favours in exchange of something within their power to grant or withhold. [9] [10] IAWJ also published a toolkit to "raise awareness about sextortion and provides the “tools” – guidance, information, and resources – with which to address a pervasive, but often hidden, form of corruption that degrades its victims and undermines social institutions around the world." [11]
The IAWJ works with national associations in five regions to develop and implement training on issues concerning discrimination and violence against women, including its judicial training initiative, the Jurisprudence of Equality Program. [12] Through its Towards a Jurisprudence of Equality Program (JEP), the International Association of Women Judges and its partner national women judges associations have enabled judges and magistrates in Africa and Latin America to implement effectively the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). [8]
In 2021, the IAWJ committed to rescuing and resettling endangered Afghan Women Judges. [13] The IAWJ Afghan Women Judges Rescue Committee was awarded the PILnet Global Partnership Award. PILnet is a global non-governmental organization that creates opportunities for social change by collaborating with public interest and private lawyers to provide high-quality, free legal assistance for civil society organizations. The PILnet Global Partnership Award "recognizes the best, most innovative pro bono legal project undertaken as a cross-sectoral collaboration with an impact felt in more than one country". Let's congratulate the members of this committee for their inspiring work and for many other recognitions to come. [14] The Bolch Judicial Institute has named the International Association of Women Judges (IAWJ) as the 2023 recipient of the Bolch Prize for the Rule of Law in recognition of the organization's remarkable efforts to evacuate, support, and resettle Afghan women judges who, because of their gender and work as judges, have faced persecution and violence since the Taliban took control of the country in late 2021. [15]
Patricia Ann McGowan Wald was an American lawyer and jurist who served as the chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1986 until 1991. She was the Court's first female chief judge and its first woman to be elevated, having been appointed by President Jimmy Carter in 1979. From 1999 to 2001, Wald was a Justice of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Gender equality, also known as sexual equality or equality of the sexes, is the state of equal ease of access to resources and opportunities regardless of gender, including economic participation and decision-making; and the state of valuing different behaviors, aspirations, and needs equally, regardless of gender.
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Women's rights in Afghanistan have oscillated back and forth depending on the time period as well as the regime in power. After King Amanullah Khan's attempts to modernize the country in the 1920s, women officially gained equality under the 1964 Constitution. However, these rights were taken away in the 1990s through different temporary rulers such as the mujahideen and the Taliban during the Afghan civil war. During the first Taliban regime (1996–2001), women had very little to no freedom, specifically in terms of civil liberties. When the Taliban was overthrown by the United States following the September 11 attacks, women's rights gradually improved under the presidential Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Women were de jure equal to men under the 2004 Constitution.
Jack Anthony Panella is an American lawyer and jurist who serves as a judge of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania. He previously served as the President Judge up until January 6, 2024. He is a member of the Democratic Party. Prior to his election to the Superior Court, he was a Judge on the Court of Common Pleas of Northampton County, Pennsylvania.
Legal Momentum, founded in 1970, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and the nation's first and longest-serving legal advocacy group for women in the United States. Betty Friedan and Muriel Fox were its co-founders and Muriel Fox is an ongoing leader of the organization. Carol Baldwin Moody became President and CEO in April 2018. The organization, founded as the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, became Legal Momentum in 2004. Legal Momentum is a multi-issue organization dedicated to advancing women’s rights and gender equality, particularly in the areas of equal education opportunities; fairness in the courts; ending all forms of gender-based violence; workplace equality and economic empowerment. The organization employs three main strategies: impact litigation, policy advocacy, and educational initiatives. It is headquartered in New York City.
Sextortion employs non-physical forms of coercion to extort sexual favors from the victim. Sextortion refers to the broad category of sexual exploitation in which abuse of power is the means of coercion, as well as to the category of sexual exploitation in which threatened release of sexual images or information is the means of coercion.
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