From 2017-2020, the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School’s Global Women’s Leadership Project (GWLP) has provided research for UNESCO and UN Women in support of their work on women, peace, and justice and women’s human rights.
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-YearRetrospective, 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
“A New Opportunity for Women in the Global Economy: The Gender and Business Index” authored by Associate Dean Rangita de Silva de Alwis with contributions from The Women, Law & Leadership seminar was presented to Lubna Olayan, the Middle East’s leading businesswoman. Law School students Michael Machado L’20, Sarah Heberlig L’21, Claire Samuelson L’21, Farah Chalisa L’20, Kunal Kanodia L’20, Emi Mitani Ed., 20, and Fumnanya Ekhator L’20 contributed to data collection.
Associate Dean Rangita de Silva de Alwis and the class on Women, Law and Leadership engaged in a fireside chat with Dina Powell, Partner at Goldman Sachs and Pioneer of 10,000 Women. A roundtable with Silda Spitzer focused on women in entrepreneurship and private equity. Read student Lindsay Holcomb’s reflections on the project.
Mission
“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.
People
Distinguished Leaders
Distinguished Advisors to the Director and the Project
Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
United Nations Under-Secretary-General & Executive Director of UN Women
Irina Bokova
Former Director-General of UNESCO
Lubna Olayan
Chairwoman of the Board, Saudi British Bank & Chairwoman, Alawwal Bank
Founding Director
Rangita de Silva de Alwis , Associate Dean of International Affairs and Advisor, UN Sustainable Development Goals Fund
Advisors
Hina Jilani, Member of the Elders
Radhika Coomaraswamy, Former Under Secretary General and UN Secretary General’s Special Representative for Children in Armed Conflict
Navi Pillay, Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
Justice Sisi Khampepe, Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa
Gulser Corat, Head of Gender, UNESCO
Program Coordinator
Kerri Kearney, Program Coordinator, International Affairs
Events
2015-2019 Global Women Leaders Forum
From 2015-2019, the Law School hosted leading women trailblazers from around the world creating a platform to amplify women’s leadership as an urgent cause of the 21st century.
Hillary Rodham Clinton, 67th United States Secretary of State
Featured Global Women Leaders: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, President Mary Robinson, Navi Pillay, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Irina Bokova, Zainab Hawa Bangura, Ambassador Melanne Verveer, Ambassador Moushira Khattab, Radhika Coomaraswamy, Asma Jahangir, Hina Jilani, Indira Jaising, MK Tzipi Livni, Penny Wong, Lubna Olayan, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
Making Laws, Breaking Silence: Case Studies From the Field
Making Laws, Breaking Silence: Case Studies from the Field grows out of a high-level roundtable convened by the Law School, UN Women, UNESCO, UN SDG Fund, and IDLO in March 2017. The convening brought together over 30 legislators, judges, and policy experts from more than 15 countries to examine new developments and challenges in gender equality lawmaking under Goal 5 of the Sustainable Development Goals. The following case studies and essays expand on those deliberations and interactions and highlight some tensions in evolving law reform efforts around the world. Closing the enforcement gap in gender equality laws is often called the “unfinished business of the 21st century.” These reflections offer fresh insights and policy guidelines for UN agencies, multilaterals, government entities and civil society organizations charged with gender-based law reform.
Family Law Project (2016-2018)
Working with Associate Dean Rangita de Silva de Alwis, Distinguished Adviser to the Executive Director of UN Women, Law School students collected and curated a compendium of family laws around the world, identified gaps in the data collection, and develop a mapping of the gender gaps in family laws. This data was last updated in December 2018.
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.
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
Penn Carey Law will partner with the SDG Fund on research, analysis and the editorial process of the SDG Fund Report addressing how businesses can contribute to peace and why SDG 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions) is important for the Private Sector.
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.”
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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.
This year, the SDG Fund with its partners will produce a report
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, 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 Law School at Penn, 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 Carey 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 Carey Law. The role of University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School is to:
Lead the research, analysis and editorial process of the report;
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:
Revise the legal part of the questionnaire;
Prepare the chapter on legal framework, access to justice and anti-corruption law with case studies on five countries in each region;
Provide input on report content;
Participate in the official launch of the report in November 2017.
The research will use qualitative methods to identify key insights and trends on business and peace. It will conduct in-depth interviews with PSAG members. The total number of interviews conducted will be 13 PSAG companies.
The report will generate greater awareness of the links between peace and sustainable development. It will also highlight the important contribution of the private sector in building peaceful and inclusive societies. Moreover, this report will analyze how businesses can play a catalytic role in achieving SDG 16. The report will provide insights on the benefits and incentives for companies to internalize SDG 16 and to partner with governments and the UN to achieve this goal.
Law School Student Fellows at Penn will provide research support to the United States Department of Commerce and USAID on their global programs on women’s economic empowerment.
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.
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
World Bank’s Gender and Identification for Development Initiative (January 14–May 1, 2019)
The World Bank Group’s Identification for Development (ID4D) initiative, in conjunction with the Gates Foundation, estimates that globally one billion people are unable to prove their identity. The majority of the one billion live in low-income countries (LICs), particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Women and the poor are less likely to have an ID than other population groups. The ID4D-Findex survey found that 45% of women in LICs do not have an ID (vs. 30% of men), and 45% of the poorest 20% of the population (vs. 28% of the richest 20%) lack proof of identity.
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 Carey 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.
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
Focal Point
Researchers
Nigeria
Fumnanya Ekhator L’20
Sabine Cardio L’19
Jessica Rizzo L’21
Tonga
Sophia Gaulkin L’20
Makenzie Way L’20
Comparative
Brendan Holman L’20
Radhika Saxena LLM’19
Global Women Leaders Video Series (2016-2019)
This video series presents conversations with women who are dealing with critical cutting edge law and policy issues.
About the Series
“Women Leaders in Law & Policy on the Global Stage” is a video series moderated by Rangita de silva de Alwis that presents conversations with women who, as experts in law and policy, are dealing with the critical, cutting-edge issues of our time. These situations — armed conflict, forced migration, sustainable development, climate change, and the human rights of children and the disabled — are where the voices of women are most in jeopardy of being silenced.
The women featured in this series have occupied myriad roles on the international stage over the course of their careers—legislator, judge, academic, government minister, political activist, and pragmatic thinker with non-governmental organizations. They have been among the few female leaders and change makers who have occupied seats at the tables where matters of import to women are discussed and decided. Their conversations with us confirm that women’s leadership of the kind they exemplify has never been more important than it is at the present moment for the achievement of equality, development and peace in the world.
Penn Carey Law is committed to providing a forum for today’s Global Decision Makers. These global thought leaders have shaped important laws, policies, and institutions around the world.
Mary Robinson
Mary Robinson, Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights; Former President of Ireland
Robinson was recently named UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoys on El Niño and Climate. She serves as the Chairman of the Institute for Human Rights and Business; President of the Mary Robinson Foundation–Climate Justice.
President Alain Berset
President Alain Berset, President of Switzerland
Alain Berset was elected by the United Federal Assembly as president of the Swiss Confederation for 2018 and serves as the head of the Federal Department of Home Affairs.
Roza Otunbayeva
Roza Otunbayeva, Former President on Kyrgyzstan; Member of the UN Secretary General’s High-Level Advisory Board on Mediation
Otunbayeva was the first leader in the region to leave office voluntarily and, as such, became part of the republic’s first peaceful transfer of power. She continues to lead Kyrgyzstan’s long journey toward peace and reconciliation by promoting democratic governance.
Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon
Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon, Former President of Mexico
Since the ending of his term as president in 2000, Zedillo has been a leading voice on globalization, especially its impact on relations between developed and developing nations. While President, Zedillo led an economic recovery, and instituted reforms designed to end political corruption and create freer elections.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Supreme Court Justice of the United States of America
Justice Ginsburg is the second woman to be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States, where she has served for 25 years as a powerful advocate for gender equality including the historic Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire dissent and the majority United States v. Virginia rulings.
Navi Pillay
Navi Pillay, Former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
In her native South Africa, Ms. Pillay contributed to the inclusion of the equality clause in the country’s Constitution that prohibits discrimination on grounds of race, gender, religion and sexual orientation. Her career has focused on children, detainees, victims of torture and of domestic violence, and a range of economic, social and cultural rights.
Zainab Hawa Bangura
Zainab Hawa Bangura, UN Under-Secretary-General and Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict
Ms. Bangura has over 20 years of policy, diplomatic and practical experience in the field of governance, conflict resolution and reconciliation in Africa. Ms. Bangura has been instrumental in developing national programs on affordable health, advocating for the elimination of genital mutilation, and managing her country’s Peace Building Commission.
Irina Bokova
Irina Bokova, Former Director-General of UNESCO
As Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova is actively engaged in international efforts to advance gender equality, quality education for all, and combat terrorist financing by preventing the illicit traffic of cultural goods. Bokova was the first Eastern European to lead UNESCO.
Asma Jahangir
Asma Jahangir, UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights to Iran; Former UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief; Former UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions
Jahangir is known globally as Pakistan’s leading human rights lawyer. Jahangir continues to face death threats for her work on behalf of women, children, and minorities, and her efforts to reform the pernicious Hudood Ordinance (crimes of honor and blasphemy in Pakistan).
Indira Jaising
Indira Jaising, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India & Founder, Lawyers Collective
Indira Jaising helped to draft India’s first domestic violence law and aided in achieving equal property rights for Syrian Christian women in India. Jaising’s dedication to battling injustice earned her the award of one of Forbes’ 50 Greatest Leaders in 2018.
Hina Jilani
Hina Jilani, Former UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Human Rights Defenders
Jilani is a pioneering lawyer and pro-democracy campaigner, a leading activist in Pakistan’s women’s movement and international champion of human rights. She founded Pakistan’s first all-women law firm; first legal aid centre; and national Human Rights Commission.
Macharia Kamau
Macharia Kamau, Kenyan Ambassador to the United Nations and Special Envoy of the Secretary-General on El Niño and Climate
Ambassador Kamau was one of the primary architects of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and co-facilitator of the 2030 Development Agenda. He has vast experience at the United Nations where he served for over twenty-five years, primarily in senior management positions at the UN Development Programme, UNICEF, and UNTAG.
Moushira Khattab
Moushira Khattab, former Minister of Family & Population of Egypt, Former Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs of Egypt, and Former Ambassador
Khattab is a world-renowned human rights activist advocating the rights of children and women and the former Chair of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child based at the UN Headquarters in Geneva.
Maria Mejía Vélez
Maria Emma Mejía Vélez, Permanent Representative of Colombia to the United Nations in New York
Ambassador Mejía has held high government positions for over two decades, dedicating most of her career to peace and Latin-American foreign affairs issues. She played a vital role in negotiating the peace agreement between the Colombian government and FARC opposition to end the fifty-year conflict.
Phumizile Mlambo-Ngcuka
Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka,United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women
Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka is the Executive Director of UN Women where she is dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women and launched the “He For She” project, a solidarity campaign for the advancement of gender equality. She was the first woman to hold the position of Deputy President of South Africa (2005-2008).
Crystal Nix-Hines
Crystal Nix-Hines, United States Ambassador to UNESCO in Paris (2014-2017)
As US Ambassador to UNESCO, Nix-Hines championed UNESCO’s initiatives to end illiteracy among women and girls, expand educational access through technology and advocated for the restoration of the US’s full financial and diplomatic partnership with UNESCO to advance the nation’s strategic and commercial interests.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, former Minister of Finance of Nigeria and Coordinating Minister for the Economy
A world-renowned economist recently named one of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders by Fortune. Okonjo-Iweala has also served as Managing Director of the World Bank.
Miguel de Serpa Soares
Miguel de Serpa Soares, UN Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs
UN Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs
Serpa Soares is the United Nations’ top legal counsel and legal advisor to Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. He previously served as Director General of Portugal’s Department of Legal Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as a Member of the Hague’s Permanent Court of Arbitration.
Donald B. Verrilli
Donald B. Verrilli, Jr., 46th Solicitor General of the United States & Partner, Munger, Tolles and Olson
Donald B. Verrilli’s tenure as the 46th Solicitor General of the United States was marked by high-profile Supreme Court cases that define President Obama’s legacy on issues of health care law, voting rights, affirmative action, same-sex marriage, and immigration.
Melanie Verveer
Melanne Verveer, Former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues
Current Executive Director of the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security at Georgetown University. Verveer previously served as Executive Director of People for the American Way, where she was involved in the passage of important civil rights legislation.
Penny Wong
Penny Wong, Leader of the Opposition in the Australian Senate
Wong is the first woman to hold both the role of Leader of the Government in the Australian Senate and, after the change of government in 2013, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate. She is an advocate for women’s equality, LGBTI rights, and a multicultural Australia.
Mapping Gender Equality
A 50-State Mapping of Paid Family Leave and Sexual Harassment Laws.
Protect against sexual orientation/ gender identity/ gender expression discrimination?
Number of employees for state law to apply
Who receives protections?
Training requirement?
Limiting forced arbitration?
Limiting non-disclosure agreements (NDA)?
Additional information such as pending legislation
Research notes:
Federal law provides sexual harassment protections to those employees working in an environment with a minimum of fifteen employees. Several state sexual harassment statutes cover employers with fewer than fifteen employers, but no state could require more than fifteen employees.
The study specifically accounted for paid family/parental leave. Pregnancy disability leave is a separate set of laws.