These student papers bring a global women’s human rights- based approach to addressing the direct and indirect health, social, economic, cultural, political, human security and gender impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak on marginalized populations, including, women, minorities, migrant workers, displaced persons and prison populations globally. As future policymakers, the hope is that their policy directives on a range of issues, including violence against women, access to water, reproductive health, and gender stereotypes will help mitigate and combat current and future global crisis situations. In the course of history, black swan events have led to significant social and political change, including the modern employment contract after the Great Bubonic Plague. Similarly, we hope that the post-COVID-19 era will see a new global gender compact that guarantees the equal rights of women and their intersectional identities.

Guiding Principles on Inclusive Distance Learning
The Guiding Principles on Inclusive Distance Learning consist of principles and values enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), the International Convention on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and are meant to guide a human rights-based approach to distance learning at a time of global crisis.

Male Allyship in the Future of Work
Law School students engage with themes of male allyship in the workplace. Read a collection of student interviews with male allies. The full report can be found here.

Five-Year Retrospective
Read the International Affairs office’s Five-Year Retrospective, narrating the diverse, international voices that have shaped the Law School’s inclusive vision of global justice.

In Our Own Voice Podcast
Listen to podcasts recorded by students of the Law School’s International Women’s Human Rights course and invited guests, discussing the intersections of feminism and law. Students of Associate Dean Rangita de Silva de Alwis interpret legal issues through a feminist lens.

The Law School Marks Women, Peace and Security Agenda
Read the Law School’s student reflections on the 20th Anniversary of the Women Peace and Security Agenda here

“Global citizens like you know that fairness and equality start with empowering women and girls.” - Justin Trudeau

From 2017-2019, under the distinguished leadership of UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka (former Vice President of South Africa), and Irina Bokova, the Secretary-General of UNESCO (the leading female candidate for UN Secretary-General in 2016), the Law School launched the Global Women’s Leadership Project. The Project, the first of its kind, is distinctive in its unique vision: to bolster the primacy of SDG Goal 5 C’s target on gender equality law reform through research support for UN Women’s and UNESCO’s work on gender-based justice sector reform.

Founded on the spirit of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of 2015, the Law School’s Global Women’s Leadership Project strives to provide research support to UNESCO’s gender-related work on peace and justice and UN Women’s work in women’s human rights, specifically relating to legal reform, and the elimination of discrimination in justice systems. Adopted by 193 countries, The SDG’s is the crowning achievement of the global development agenda and one of the most ambitious platforms of action. Goal 5 is inextricably interlinked to all 17 SDG goals and recognizes that gender equality and ending all forms of discrimination against women and girls everywhere is linked to sustainable development and security.

UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls around the world. In 2007, UNESCO designated Gender Equality as one of its two Global Priorities. Gender equality is central to UNESCO’s overarching objectives of peace and sustainable development.

Working with Student Fellows, the Law School’s Global Women’s Leadership Project’s research will build on the Beijing Platform of Action, the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and its intersectional treaties, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2015). Further, taken together, the UN Security Council’s eight resolutions 1325 (2000); 1820 (2009); 1888 (2009); 1889 (2010); 1960 (2011); 2106 (2013); 2122 (2013); and 2242 (2015) provide landmark guarantees to promote and protect the rights of women in conflict and post-conflict under the rubric of the Women Peace and Security Agenda. The Law School’s Global Women’s Leadership Project will convene important global leaders on critical conversations and build a single umbrella of research on one of the key targets of Goal 5 of the SDGs, the adoption, and strengthening of sound policies and enforceable legislation on gender equality.

Family Law is a litmus test of the status of women and has an intimate and powerful impact on women’s lives. The cultural construction of gender determines the role of women and girls within the family and in turn shapes women’s citizenship. Martha Minow has defined family law as “forming underneath everything that grows,” in the sense that its “rules about roles and duties between men and women, parents and children, families and strangers historically and conceptually underlie other rules about employment and commerce, education and welfare, and perhaps the governance of the state.” Globally, family law inequalities are often translated into gender inequalities in the public sphere including in the workplace. Around the world, family law reform has had a cause and effect relationship on gender equality. 

A link to the database can be found here.

Methodology

In preparation for the mapping, a series of preliminary indicators (consistent with the CEDAW) will help the Student Fellows to identify the lacunae and gender asymmetry in the laws. They include:

• Gender discriminatory age of marriage;
• Restrictions to the freedom of marriage (including but not limited to consent of male guardian);
• Unequal rights to separation, divorce, custody and guardianship of children;
• Legal requirements to obey husband; Legally allowed moderate chastisement of wife;
• Gender differences in conveying citizenship to non- national spouse;
• Restrictions on freedom of movement: spousal or male guardian’s permission to travel outside the home; spousal or male guardian’s permission to work outside the home;
• Spousal or male guardian’s approval to sign a contract or register a business;
• Lack of legal recognition as “head of household”;
• Gender differentials in conferring citizenship to children,
• Spousal or male guardian’s permission to open a bank account, registration of land ownership and land tenure;
• Equal decision-making powers including choice of residence, administration of marital property, including its sale;
• Unequal inheritance rights over property;
• Gender discriminatory tax deductions, credits or benefits related to family members or dependent spouses;
• The recognition of gender discriminatory customary law and personal law; 
• Inheritance rights to the property of the deceased husband;
• Gender biased as opposed to gender neutral language in the law;
• The concept of “illegitimate children” and children born outside of marriage as the responsibility of the mother’s;
• The concept of “husband obedience”                                    

Field Researchers & Student Fellows

• Africa – Amanda Nasinyama LLM ’17
• Asia - Amal Sethi, SJD Candidate
• Europe – Georgia Strati
• Israel - Talya Djemal LLM’18 & Ortal Mendelawe LLM’18
• India - Teresa Akkara L’18 & Akila Sarathy L’18
• Latin America - Gabriella Goncalves LLM’17
• Pakistan - Arhama Rushdi L’18
• Turkey - Rana Ozer  LLM’18
• Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia - Meroua Zouai  L’20
• Lebanon - Joelle Hageboutros L’21

In 2015, world leaders unanimously adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). For the first time in its seventy-year history, the United Nations has an agreed agenda that integrates peace and sustainable development. The preamble of the 2030 Agenda states: “There can be no sustainable development without peace and no peace without sustainable development.” SDG 16 focuses on “promoting peaceful and inclusive societies, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.”

The 2030 Agenda is providing opportunities to work beyond silos and communities of practice and the involvement of the private sector is no longer optional. Through the SDG 17 on “revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development”, the 2030 Agenda calls for global partnership and requests governments, civil society and the private sector to work together. The challenge now lies in implementation at all levels, international, national and local. This global framework largely depends on new and dynamic public private partnerships.

Before the SDG era, the involvement of the private sector in the United Nations development agenda was primarily philanthropic. To transform “words into action”, the private sector needs to be engaged as a responsible and active partner. The business community can play a catalytic role in achieving both the 2030 Agenda and in sustaining peace. Without the role of business, implementation of the SDGs is impossible, and in the end, the UN needs the business community and vice versa.

SDG 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions) is dedicated to the promotion of peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, the provision of access to justice for all, and building effective, accountable institutions at all levels. The private sector has a leading role in the promotion of good governance, anti-corruption laws and transparency. Public-private partnerships, social investments and support of the rule of law can promote inclusive economic development and contribute to more peaceful and inclusive societies.

The need to implement the SDGs is more urgent than ever, the exponential rise of inequalities and the slowing pace of global trade can become forces counteracting the global vision. As the Secretary General’s Report on Economic Governance states, “Weak economic growth is likely to undermine public and private investment in education, health and infrastructure, environmental protection and progress in poverty reduction.” ^[1] Therefore, strengthening partnerships between the public and private sector as called for in the SDG 17 (strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development) can counteract these negative trends.

Businesses can play a catalytic role for SDG 16 at local and global levels. By being responsible partners throughout their chains of production, businesses can help the countries where they operate to meet the targets related to anti-corruption, labor rights, inclusive decision-making and community engagement. Therefore, the report will focus on the role of the private sector in achieving peace through SDG 16.

^[1] Report of the UN SG on “The UN in Global Economic Governance,” http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/71/378

This year, the SDG Fund with its partners will produce a report ^[1] , focusing on how businesses can contribute to peace and why SDG 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions) is important for the private sector. The SDG Fund at the United Nations, in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania Law School, McDermott Will & Emery LLP, and business leaders from the SDG Fund`s Private Sector Advisory Group, will analyze the links between inclusive growth, partnerships and peace.

The Report will analyze the following areas:

• The role and contribution of the private sector in sustaining peace
• The interlinkages of SDG 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions) and SDG 17 (Global partnership for sustainable development) and how it applies to the private sector
• How the SDGF Private Sector Advisory Group members are implementing SDG 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions)
• The challenges and opportunities including the legal framework needed to incentivize the achievement of SDG 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions)

This report will serve as a practical guide to share best practices and to illustrate how businesses could embrace and incorporate SDGs into their core business. This report will also showcase how the private sector could play a key role in the peace agenda. It will also shed light on the ways in which an effective legal framework can help the private sector to build trust with the public sector and the civil society.

The SDG Fund and its Private Sector Advisory Group

The SDG Fund is an international multi-donor and multi-agency development mechanism. To better align public-private partnerships for sustainable development, the SDG Fund has established a Private Sector Advisory Group, formed by business leaders of major companies from various industries worldwide. Together with the PSAG, the SDG Fund launched two reports ^{[2] to identify areas of common interest and decipher the best methods of UN - Private Sector engagement.}

University of Pennsylvania Law School

Editors of the report will include Rangita de Silva Dealwis, Global Advisor, SDG Fund and Bob Cusumano, founder of the Legal Horizons Rule of Law Fellowship at Penn Law. The role of University of Pennsylvania Law School is to:

1. Lead the research, analysis and editorial process of the report;
2. Participate in the official launch of the report in November 2017.

McDermott Will & Emery LLP

McDermott Will & Emery LLP is an international law firm specialize in tax, private equity, mergers and acquisitions, health care, high-stakes litigation, and many other key areas of transactional and regulatory law. The role of McDermott Will & Emery LLP is to:

1. Revise the legal part of the questionnaire;
2. Prepare the chapter on legal framework, access to justice and anti-corruption law with case studies on five countries in each region;
3. Provide input on report content;
4. Participate in the official launch of the report in November 2017.

^[1]  Business and the United Nations: Working together towards the Sustainable Development Goals: A Framework for Action outlines the business and development case for increased UN business engagement as well as recommendations on the ways that the UN can work more effectively on this shared imperative. Universality and the SDGs: A Business Perspective highlights varied perspectives from both large and small companies working to understand the commonality of the new development agenda.

^[2] SDG Fund, together with its Private Sector Advisory Group, has published two reports on: Business and the United Nations and on Universality and the SDGs: A Business Perspective.

The initiative will identify challenges in the law that hinder women’s economic participation, particularly in gaining employment and undertaking entrepreneurship, in countries where there is most room for impact, such as the BRICs. Moreover, it will seek to identify best-in-class examples, such as Canada, to highlight those interventions that translate law into action, promoting women’s economic participation and opening up avenues for increased economic empowerment. Legal restrictions impede women’s full and equal participation in the economy and limit economic growth in their communities and countries. Gender equality in work cannot be possible without gender equality in society.

Report

Student Fellows

• Tala Al Jabri, WG’18 - Saudi Arabia
• Beatriz Brown, LLM’18 - United Kingdom
• Shane Fischman, L’19 - United States
• Claire Glossop, WG’18 - Canada
• Gabriella Goncalves, LLM’17 - Brazil
• Talya Kornitzer, LLM’18 - Canada’s Indigenous Women
• Kimberly Panian, L’18 - Mexico
• Amal Sethi, SJD’19 - India
• Leah Wong, L’18 - United States & Nigeria

There is little evidence about what causes the gender gap in possession of officially recognized IDs, however, and how it might vary within countries between, for example, the rich and the poor and different ethnic groups. It is important to address the gender gap because women’s lack of access to IDs will constrain progress that can be made in other areas that are critical to poverty reduction – but that require proof of identity — such as financial inclusion, ownership of mobile phones, health services, social protection, and other development goals that are critical for the empowerment of women and girls.

Gender-based barriers that limit at the national level women’s access to IDs in comparison to men’s access to IDs lie in households, informal institutions (social norms), markets (direct and indirect costs), and formal institutions (legal barriers). Gender differentials in laws circumscribe a woman’s right to travel outside the home, get a job or pursue a trade or profession without permission from a husband or male guardian, sign a contract, register a business; be the head of household or head of family; be able to confer citizenship to her children; decide where her child will attend school; open a bank account; choose where to live; have ownership over property; inherit property; act against the wishes of their husband; convey citizenship to a non-national husband; administer marital property; exercise basic guardianship and customary rights over children and more. These laws, regulations, and policies restrict the full capacity of women and constrain a woman’s economic choices, including her ability to engage in entrepreneurial and employment activities.

As part of the deep dive into gender-based differences in official forms of identification and how this may impact financial inclusion, access to education and other (e.g. social safety nets), a select group of law students at the University of Pennsylvania, under the supervision of Associate Dean Rangita de Silva de Alwis, will analyze laws in Nigeria and Tonga, including, but not limited to: gender-based legal barriers to birth registration; gender-based legal barriers to obtaining an ID card; gender-based legal barriers to obtaining a passport; and nationality laws in Nigeria and Tonga. Penn Law students will conduct this research as a one-credit independent study for a semester. Students will undertake legal research as needed, and, when appropriate, attend meetings, either in person or via video conference with ID4D, Legal and Gender teams. The students will produce research memos at defined milestones. A final report of their work will be submitted to the World Bank in May 2019.

Final Report

Informing the World Bank’s Gender and Identification for Development Initiative

• Examining the international and regional law frameworks as critical analytical tools, including but not limited to: the state parties’ obligations under human rights conventions (ICCPR, ICESCR, CEDAW, CRC, SDGs, SCR 1325 and the Maputo Protocol)
• Analyzing state party reports to the human rights treaty bodies, including the CEDAW/ UPR and other obligations
• Gathering and analyzing gender-based legal restrictions on financial inclusion, access to education, health care, employment (unequal retirement age, pensions, social security etc.), land and property rights, by identifying gender-based legal differences in the legal system which directly or indirectly impact policies that affect women’s economic opportunities.
• Mapping gender legal differences in formal and customary laws: husband’s permission to freedom of movement; apply for a passport; head of household; choice of residence; confer citizenship to children; husband’s permission for a job; travel outside the home; register a business; open a bank account; sign a contract; woman has to prove her identity to enter an employment contract or access finance. Proof of identity is necessary to borrow from banks.
• Analyzing asymmetries in laws and policies against the baseline of constitutional guarantees and international treaty obligations.
• Benchmarking the legal and regulatory environment for women in business and innovation
• Identifying and analyzing cases that address gender discrimination in the laws.
• Collecting (if available) quantitative and qualitative data through field research done over Skype from the law school.
• Examining comparative legal systems and highlighting transnational jurisprudence from these legal systems, including reformist efforts in countries that are being studied by the Bank, including best practices from the region and sub-region.

Student Research Teams