Aisling Swaine - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Aisling Swaine

Violence Against Women

This article advances our understanding of the drivers and multidimensional nature of conflict-re... more This article advances our understanding of the drivers and multidimensional nature of conflict-related violence against women and girls (CRVAWG). It presents an adapted socioecological model, which supports research, analysis, and programming and can be further adapted as the empirical evidence base grows. Although models to help explore violence against women and girls generally have advanced over recent decades, these have not addressed the specific dynamics of conflict-affected settings. This article makes a unique contribution by bringing together research on CRVAWG and presenting a new model for deepening current approaches to understanding and preventing CRVAWG.

Cambridge University Press, Feb 1, 2018

Violence Against Women

The “Troubles” in Northern Ireland are often assumed to represent an outlier in respect of contem... more The “Troubles” in Northern Ireland are often assumed to represent an outlier in respect of contemporary global discourse on conflict-related violence against women (CRVAW), and particularly “strategic rape.” CRVAW has neither commanded the narrative nor imagery of that conflict nor specifically recognized globally as part of women's experiences of it. A composite and comprehensive analysis of CRVAW for that context has been absent. Based on primary and secondary research, and analytically advanced through gender and critical harm theory, the article presents the first typology of CRVAW for the Northern Ireland Troubles. The article maps and evidences a range of gendered harms directly and indirectly resulting from the conflict enacted by state and nonstate actors. It argues that a resurfacing of gender is required to ensure current global debates on CRVAW are informed by a reconsideration of what constitutes “strategic” harm in armed conflict.

The Oxford Handbook of Women, Peace, and Security, 2018

One of the key conclusions of the Global Study on UN Security Council Resolution 1325 was the nee... more One of the key conclusions of the Global Study on UN Security Council Resolution 1325 was the need for improved synergies between the treaty-based human rights system and the WPS agenda. This chapter considers the current and potential role of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the CEDAW Committee in advancing accountability and normative development of the WPS agenda. The Convention and the Optional Protocol offer an established mechanism of state accountability for women’s rights for the Convention’s 189 state parties. In addition, the CEDAW Committee is a key normative actor on women’s rights in conflict, producing general recommendations and considering individual communications and inquiry requests under the Optional Protocol. This chapter, therefore, examines the Committee’s activities in the implementation and interpretation of the WPS agenda, drawing particular attention to changes introduced by the Committee’s General ...

As has characterised the UN Security Council’s women, peace and security agenda (WPS) since its a... more As has characterised the UN Security Council’s women, peace and security agenda (WPS) since its adoption, the lead up to its twentieth anniversary next year is becoming defined by a contrasting set of perils as well as promises that have beset the agenda to date. The adoption of Resolution 2493 (2019) at the Open Debate on WPS on the 29th October, the tenth WPS resolution, recently brought these dynamics into stark relief. Questions abound about the UNSC as the right place for advancing women’s rights in conflict, with the growing pushback against global normative advancement on gender equality now particularly felt in the Council, on top of the challenges presented by its own particular political dynamics. In this article Catherine O’Rourke and Aisling Swaine detail the challenges, and why nevertheless, there may be some room for hope in aspects of the most recent resolutions, if allowed to be brought forward.

The complex challenges and opportunities of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda, as enunciated i... more The complex challenges and opportunities of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda, as enunciated in United National Security Council Resolution 1325 of 2000, and several subsequent resolutions, lend themselves to both a “cup half full” and a “cup half empty” interpretation. The very phrase, the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda (WPS, for short), is itself a sign of progress among professionals working on global gender policy and programs around the world, as it is increasingly accepted as an important mandate across a wide variety of institutions, both public and private. On the downside, the WPS agenda is clearly not a household term (widely known outside activist and policy circles), nor is its foundational policy, United Nations Security Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325). This Working Paper looks at the Women, Peace and Security agenda as laid out in UNSCR 1325 and in six following Security Council Resolutions UNSCR 1820, 1888, 1889, 1960, 2106 and 2122 (see Boxes 1 and 2) to assess pr...

This chapter considers scholarly and practical attempts to advance notions of gender security. Hu... more This chapter considers scholarly and practical attempts to advance notions of gender security. Human rights and inclusivity are central to the pursuit of comprehensive gender security. With this in mind, this chapter argues that going forward, the isolation of the WPS agenda within the confines of the UN Security Council and its mandate requires unshackling. Furthermore, it concludes that comprehensive approaches to gendered security need to be advanced across all initiatives relating to peace and security. Pursuing gender security is a complex endeavor that requires understanding security, war, and gender as concepts in and of themselves in disaggregated ways, and at the same time illuminating the impossibility of disaggregating one from the other. To that end, this chapter concludes that war and insecurity cannot be understood without understanding their gendered nature, while the dynamics of contemporary gender relations are inseparable from the insidious influence of norms of mi...

The exceptionalism attributed to acts of sexualised violence in war has reinforced the idea that ... more The exceptionalism attributed to acts of sexualised violence in war has reinforced the idea that what happens in war is different from that occurring outside of war. This counters long-standing feminist scholarship which has argued that violence against women (VAW) in conflict is a reflection of the everyday, mundane ways that women experience violence in their everyday lives. The paper presents a new ‘pre, during- and post-conflict framework’ to map, on the basis of theory and empirics, the inter-relationship between VAW within and outside conflict. Applied to the case study of Timor-Leste, the paper finds that common across time and space are the sustained presence of gendered harms, and that VAW is ambulant in nature and responsive to context, identifying connections and distinctions in VAW across conflict-time and peace-time. Through analysis of the Timor-Leste truth commission’s outcomes, the paper argues that an understanding of this complexity to VAW is essential to advanc...

The implementation of the women, peace and security resolutions of the United Nations Security Co... more The implementation of the women, peace and security resolutions of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) faces ongoing challenges. National action plans (NAPs) are being developed as a means to address the implementation gap, with 40 such NAPs developed by UN member states to date. NAPs aim to enable states' commitments under the various UNSC resolutions to become the actions they take in both domestic and foreign policy. Stand-alone NAPs offer significant opportunity to advance national implementation of the women, peace and security (WPS) agenda. They also present risks, however, most notably in terms of how strategic provisions of the various WPS resolutions are translated into actions in an action plan. Successful implementation of the WPS agenda is thus not just contingent on the adoption of a NAP, but the proper implementation of that NAP. This policy brief provides an overview of the key opportunities and constraints presented by NAPs and the action planning process itself, and concludes with a range of recommendations for enhancing the development and implementation of NAPs for the overall fulfilment of the WPS agenda.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2010

... Aisling Swaine Transitional Justice Institute, University of Ulster Introduction ... 10 Ibean... more ... Aisling Swaine Transitional Justice Institute, University of Ulster Introduction ... 10 Ibeanu,Okechukwu, Healing and Changing the changing Identity of Women in the Aftermath of the Ogoni Crisis in Nigeria, Chapter 12 in: Meintjes, S., A. Pillay, et al., Eds. (2001). ...

Human Rights Quarterly, 2015

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2008

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325) on Women, Peace and Security (2000) ... more United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325) on Women, Peace and Security (2000) demands recognition of the role of women in conflict prevention, management and resolution and calls on the international community to take specific steps to enhance women’s meaningful participation in these processes and to protect women in times of conflict. Implementing UNSCR 1325 is a demanding and ambitious task, but one which must be fulfilled if the resolution is to be successful in ensuring women are given equal status with men in all efforts to address peace and security issues. The development of National Action Plans (NAPs) for the implementation of UNSCR 1325 by Member States was called for by the UN Secretary General in 2004. NAPs are considered to be the most effective way to translate the goals of UNSCR 1325 into reality. This paper was conceptualized and developed by the Irish Joint Consortium on Gender Based Violence (www.gbv.ie) to contribute in a practical way to the development of an Irish National Action Plan for the full implementation of UNSCR 1325. Research by the author for this paper was conducted over a three-month period and aimed to identify good practice examples of how NAPs have been developed by other countries. The paper outlines lessons learned from these processes, a brief overview of what they contain in terms of content and identifies good practices in terms of implementation, monitoring and evaluation – examples which Ireland could employ as it embarks on the development of its NAP. A set of recommendations is derived from this research and sets out a way forward for the development of an Irish NAP.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2003

This study was initiated by The International Rescue Committee (IRC, theirc.org) who had been wor... more This study was initiated by The International Rescue Committee (IRC, theirc.org) who had been working in the area of Gender Based Violence in Timor Leste for over two years. The principal aim of this study was to gather information regarding local justice systems in Timor-Leste and how these systems treat cases of gender based violence, to inform development of the organizations’ programmes responding to women experiencing violence in the home. The report is based on 32 full days of ‘field research’ (which took place between March and August 2003) in which over 60 interviews and 6 Focus Group Discussions were held with women in rural areas and with relevant policy actors at national level. Major findings include that women have minimal and often superficial participation in local justice hearings and find that the rulings which are passed are often based on the administrators of justice own biases and cultural beliefs regarding women’s status in society. Women used local justice because of its basis in their culture and the fact that it is a familiar and known concept. It was seen however to often blame women for the cases of violence presented and women users were dissatisfied with this characteristic. Police were perceived to have more force and capacity to scare violent husbands into stopping violence, even though women cannot be guaranteed that police officers will take their cases seriously, nor ensure that they are no longer exposed to real threats. The formal justice system presents challenges in terms of biases against women and problems of access for rural women. A combination of the two systems were thought to be most forceful by respondents. The two justice systems, which are currently running alongside each other in Timor-Leste, are failing to adequately and fairly deal with cases of gender based violence which women present to them. Both are inherently patriarchal in their attitudes towards both women and the violence they experience. However, the research finds that both systems do have positive traits which need to be built upon and provides recommendations to ensure that women’s rights are both protected and promoted in a culturally accepted way.

Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law, 2009

International Criminal Law Review, 2012

Peace agreements have their honeymoon periods launched by a photo shoot marking the outbreak of ‘... more Peace agreements have their honeymoon periods launched by a photo shoot marking the outbreak of ‘peace’. The work of converting the promise and hard-won compromises of a transition into reality is fraught with visible and hidden threats. When can we know a transition is ‘working’? How can we calculate the level of security threat posed to future stability by deep rooted structural inequalities? What role does restorative justice play in these dilemmas? The textual and political site for this analysis is Northern Ireland’s 1998 Agreement. Intersectionality theory aids analysis of the gender dynamics of law and politics in this jurisdiction. We find that political stability has built-in gendered costs and benefits. Local restorative justice initiatives may proactively reduce communal tensions but benefits to women may be less evident. An intersectional assessment brings women’s lives into the picture and moreover explains how transitions work in practice.

Bliainiris Éireannach an Dlí Idirnáisiúnta The Irish Yearbook of International Law, 2020

As the twentieth anniversary of the women, peace and security (WPS) agenda approaches, one of its... more As the twentieth anniversary of the women, peace and security (WPS) agenda approaches, one of its most significant challenges has yet to be overcome: that of garnering real investment in the human development and human rights entitlements of women and girls in conflict-affected settings. Implementation has been heavily reliant on planning strategies, namely, National Action Plans on Women Peace and Security (NAPs-WPS) which have fallen short of fulfilling the women’s rights intentions of the agenda. Learning and adaptation from ‘gender planning theory’ employed in the development fields has been curiously absent from planning for WPS. This paper argues that through a move from ‘women in security’ to ‘gender, peace and security’, a ‘gender planning for peace and security’ approach could improve NAPS-WPS. The paper proposes a two-part ‘Gender Interests Analysis’ framework as a conceptual basis for gender planning for peace and security. To illustrate its validity, the framework is used to review existing NAPs-WPS in the Asia-Pacific region. The review of the NAPs-WPS finds that the plans are failing to address some of the most important critical needs of women and girls, are weighting planning towards the planners instead of women and girls, and are failing to ensure that common as well as distinctive and disaggregated interests of diverse groups of women and girls are met. It demonstrates that the use of gender planning frameworks could address such gaps and strengthen overall planning for WPS. The paper concludes by identifying the need for a re-orientation of NAPs-WPS towards the lives of women and girls through the use of gender planning for peace and security.

feminists@law, 2019

The exceptionalism attributed to acts of sexualised violence in war has reinforced the idea that ... more The exceptionalism attributed to acts of sexualised violence in war has reinforced the idea that what happens in war is different from that occurring outside of war. This counters long-standing feminist scholarship which has argued that violence against women (VAW) in conflict is a reflection of the everyday, mundane ways that women experience violence in their everyday lives. The paper presents a new ‘pre, during- and post-conflict framework’ to map, on the basis of theory and empirics, the inter-relationship between VAW within and outside conflict. Applied to the case study of Timor-Leste, the paper finds that common across time and space are the sustained presence of gendered harms, and that VAW is ambulant in nature and responsive to context, identifying connections and distinctions in VAW across conflict-time and peace-time. Through analysis of the Timor-Leste truth commission’s outcomes, the paper argues that an understanding of this complexity to VAW is essential to advancing...

Violence Against Women

This article advances our understanding of the drivers and multidimensional nature of conflict-re... more This article advances our understanding of the drivers and multidimensional nature of conflict-related violence against women and girls (CRVAWG). It presents an adapted socioecological model, which supports research, analysis, and programming and can be further adapted as the empirical evidence base grows. Although models to help explore violence against women and girls generally have advanced over recent decades, these have not addressed the specific dynamics of conflict-affected settings. This article makes a unique contribution by bringing together research on CRVAWG and presenting a new model for deepening current approaches to understanding and preventing CRVAWG.

Cambridge University Press, Feb 1, 2018

Violence Against Women

The “Troubles” in Northern Ireland are often assumed to represent an outlier in respect of contem... more The “Troubles” in Northern Ireland are often assumed to represent an outlier in respect of contemporary global discourse on conflict-related violence against women (CRVAW), and particularly “strategic rape.” CRVAW has neither commanded the narrative nor imagery of that conflict nor specifically recognized globally as part of women's experiences of it. A composite and comprehensive analysis of CRVAW for that context has been absent. Based on primary and secondary research, and analytically advanced through gender and critical harm theory, the article presents the first typology of CRVAW for the Northern Ireland Troubles. The article maps and evidences a range of gendered harms directly and indirectly resulting from the conflict enacted by state and nonstate actors. It argues that a resurfacing of gender is required to ensure current global debates on CRVAW are informed by a reconsideration of what constitutes “strategic” harm in armed conflict.

The Oxford Handbook of Women, Peace, and Security, 2018

One of the key conclusions of the Global Study on UN Security Council Resolution 1325 was the nee... more One of the key conclusions of the Global Study on UN Security Council Resolution 1325 was the need for improved synergies between the treaty-based human rights system and the WPS agenda. This chapter considers the current and potential role of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the CEDAW Committee in advancing accountability and normative development of the WPS agenda. The Convention and the Optional Protocol offer an established mechanism of state accountability for women’s rights for the Convention’s 189 state parties. In addition, the CEDAW Committee is a key normative actor on women’s rights in conflict, producing general recommendations and considering individual communications and inquiry requests under the Optional Protocol. This chapter, therefore, examines the Committee’s activities in the implementation and interpretation of the WPS agenda, drawing particular attention to changes introduced by the Committee’s General ...

As has characterised the UN Security Council’s women, peace and security agenda (WPS) since its a... more As has characterised the UN Security Council’s women, peace and security agenda (WPS) since its adoption, the lead up to its twentieth anniversary next year is becoming defined by a contrasting set of perils as well as promises that have beset the agenda to date. The adoption of Resolution 2493 (2019) at the Open Debate on WPS on the 29th October, the tenth WPS resolution, recently brought these dynamics into stark relief. Questions abound about the UNSC as the right place for advancing women’s rights in conflict, with the growing pushback against global normative advancement on gender equality now particularly felt in the Council, on top of the challenges presented by its own particular political dynamics. In this article Catherine O’Rourke and Aisling Swaine detail the challenges, and why nevertheless, there may be some room for hope in aspects of the most recent resolutions, if allowed to be brought forward.

The complex challenges and opportunities of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda, as enunciated i... more The complex challenges and opportunities of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda, as enunciated in United National Security Council Resolution 1325 of 2000, and several subsequent resolutions, lend themselves to both a “cup half full” and a “cup half empty” interpretation. The very phrase, the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda (WPS, for short), is itself a sign of progress among professionals working on global gender policy and programs around the world, as it is increasingly accepted as an important mandate across a wide variety of institutions, both public and private. On the downside, the WPS agenda is clearly not a household term (widely known outside activist and policy circles), nor is its foundational policy, United Nations Security Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325). This Working Paper looks at the Women, Peace and Security agenda as laid out in UNSCR 1325 and in six following Security Council Resolutions UNSCR 1820, 1888, 1889, 1960, 2106 and 2122 (see Boxes 1 and 2) to assess pr...

This chapter considers scholarly and practical attempts to advance notions of gender security. Hu... more This chapter considers scholarly and practical attempts to advance notions of gender security. Human rights and inclusivity are central to the pursuit of comprehensive gender security. With this in mind, this chapter argues that going forward, the isolation of the WPS agenda within the confines of the UN Security Council and its mandate requires unshackling. Furthermore, it concludes that comprehensive approaches to gendered security need to be advanced across all initiatives relating to peace and security. Pursuing gender security is a complex endeavor that requires understanding security, war, and gender as concepts in and of themselves in disaggregated ways, and at the same time illuminating the impossibility of disaggregating one from the other. To that end, this chapter concludes that war and insecurity cannot be understood without understanding their gendered nature, while the dynamics of contemporary gender relations are inseparable from the insidious influence of norms of mi...

The exceptionalism attributed to acts of sexualised violence in war has reinforced the idea that ... more The exceptionalism attributed to acts of sexualised violence in war has reinforced the idea that what happens in war is different from that occurring outside of war. This counters long-standing feminist scholarship which has argued that violence against women (VAW) in conflict is a reflection of the everyday, mundane ways that women experience violence in their everyday lives. The paper presents a new ‘pre, during- and post-conflict framework’ to map, on the basis of theory and empirics, the inter-relationship between VAW within and outside conflict. Applied to the case study of Timor-Leste, the paper finds that common across time and space are the sustained presence of gendered harms, and that VAW is ambulant in nature and responsive to context, identifying connections and distinctions in VAW across conflict-time and peace-time. Through analysis of the Timor-Leste truth commission’s outcomes, the paper argues that an understanding of this complexity to VAW is essential to advanc...

The implementation of the women, peace and security resolutions of the United Nations Security Co... more The implementation of the women, peace and security resolutions of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) faces ongoing challenges. National action plans (NAPs) are being developed as a means to address the implementation gap, with 40 such NAPs developed by UN member states to date. NAPs aim to enable states' commitments under the various UNSC resolutions to become the actions they take in both domestic and foreign policy. Stand-alone NAPs offer significant opportunity to advance national implementation of the women, peace and security (WPS) agenda. They also present risks, however, most notably in terms of how strategic provisions of the various WPS resolutions are translated into actions in an action plan. Successful implementation of the WPS agenda is thus not just contingent on the adoption of a NAP, but the proper implementation of that NAP. This policy brief provides an overview of the key opportunities and constraints presented by NAPs and the action planning process itself, and concludes with a range of recommendations for enhancing the development and implementation of NAPs for the overall fulfilment of the WPS agenda.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2010

... Aisling Swaine Transitional Justice Institute, University of Ulster Introduction ... 10 Ibean... more ... Aisling Swaine Transitional Justice Institute, University of Ulster Introduction ... 10 Ibeanu,Okechukwu, Healing and Changing the changing Identity of Women in the Aftermath of the Ogoni Crisis in Nigeria, Chapter 12 in: Meintjes, S., A. Pillay, et al., Eds. (2001). ...

Human Rights Quarterly, 2015

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2008

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325) on Women, Peace and Security (2000) ... more United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325) on Women, Peace and Security (2000) demands recognition of the role of women in conflict prevention, management and resolution and calls on the international community to take specific steps to enhance women’s meaningful participation in these processes and to protect women in times of conflict. Implementing UNSCR 1325 is a demanding and ambitious task, but one which must be fulfilled if the resolution is to be successful in ensuring women are given equal status with men in all efforts to address peace and security issues. The development of National Action Plans (NAPs) for the implementation of UNSCR 1325 by Member States was called for by the UN Secretary General in 2004. NAPs are considered to be the most effective way to translate the goals of UNSCR 1325 into reality. This paper was conceptualized and developed by the Irish Joint Consortium on Gender Based Violence (www.gbv.ie) to contribute in a practical way to the development of an Irish National Action Plan for the full implementation of UNSCR 1325. Research by the author for this paper was conducted over a three-month period and aimed to identify good practice examples of how NAPs have been developed by other countries. The paper outlines lessons learned from these processes, a brief overview of what they contain in terms of content and identifies good practices in terms of implementation, monitoring and evaluation – examples which Ireland could employ as it embarks on the development of its NAP. A set of recommendations is derived from this research and sets out a way forward for the development of an Irish NAP.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2003

This study was initiated by The International Rescue Committee (IRC, theirc.org) who had been wor... more This study was initiated by The International Rescue Committee (IRC, theirc.org) who had been working in the area of Gender Based Violence in Timor Leste for over two years. The principal aim of this study was to gather information regarding local justice systems in Timor-Leste and how these systems treat cases of gender based violence, to inform development of the organizations’ programmes responding to women experiencing violence in the home. The report is based on 32 full days of ‘field research’ (which took place between March and August 2003) in which over 60 interviews and 6 Focus Group Discussions were held with women in rural areas and with relevant policy actors at national level. Major findings include that women have minimal and often superficial participation in local justice hearings and find that the rulings which are passed are often based on the administrators of justice own biases and cultural beliefs regarding women’s status in society. Women used local justice because of its basis in their culture and the fact that it is a familiar and known concept. It was seen however to often blame women for the cases of violence presented and women users were dissatisfied with this characteristic. Police were perceived to have more force and capacity to scare violent husbands into stopping violence, even though women cannot be guaranteed that police officers will take their cases seriously, nor ensure that they are no longer exposed to real threats. The formal justice system presents challenges in terms of biases against women and problems of access for rural women. A combination of the two systems were thought to be most forceful by respondents. The two justice systems, which are currently running alongside each other in Timor-Leste, are failing to adequately and fairly deal with cases of gender based violence which women present to them. Both are inherently patriarchal in their attitudes towards both women and the violence they experience. However, the research finds that both systems do have positive traits which need to be built upon and provides recommendations to ensure that women’s rights are both protected and promoted in a culturally accepted way.

Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law, 2009

International Criminal Law Review, 2012

Peace agreements have their honeymoon periods launched by a photo shoot marking the outbreak of ‘... more Peace agreements have their honeymoon periods launched by a photo shoot marking the outbreak of ‘peace’. The work of converting the promise and hard-won compromises of a transition into reality is fraught with visible and hidden threats. When can we know a transition is ‘working’? How can we calculate the level of security threat posed to future stability by deep rooted structural inequalities? What role does restorative justice play in these dilemmas? The textual and political site for this analysis is Northern Ireland’s 1998 Agreement. Intersectionality theory aids analysis of the gender dynamics of law and politics in this jurisdiction. We find that political stability has built-in gendered costs and benefits. Local restorative justice initiatives may proactively reduce communal tensions but benefits to women may be less evident. An intersectional assessment brings women’s lives into the picture and moreover explains how transitions work in practice.

Bliainiris Éireannach an Dlí Idirnáisiúnta The Irish Yearbook of International Law, 2020

As the twentieth anniversary of the women, peace and security (WPS) agenda approaches, one of its... more As the twentieth anniversary of the women, peace and security (WPS) agenda approaches, one of its most significant challenges has yet to be overcome: that of garnering real investment in the human development and human rights entitlements of women and girls in conflict-affected settings. Implementation has been heavily reliant on planning strategies, namely, National Action Plans on Women Peace and Security (NAPs-WPS) which have fallen short of fulfilling the women’s rights intentions of the agenda. Learning and adaptation from ‘gender planning theory’ employed in the development fields has been curiously absent from planning for WPS. This paper argues that through a move from ‘women in security’ to ‘gender, peace and security’, a ‘gender planning for peace and security’ approach could improve NAPS-WPS. The paper proposes a two-part ‘Gender Interests Analysis’ framework as a conceptual basis for gender planning for peace and security. To illustrate its validity, the framework is used to review existing NAPs-WPS in the Asia-Pacific region. The review of the NAPs-WPS finds that the plans are failing to address some of the most important critical needs of women and girls, are weighting planning towards the planners instead of women and girls, and are failing to ensure that common as well as distinctive and disaggregated interests of diverse groups of women and girls are met. It demonstrates that the use of gender planning frameworks could address such gaps and strengthen overall planning for WPS. The paper concludes by identifying the need for a re-orientation of NAPs-WPS towards the lives of women and girls through the use of gender planning for peace and security.

feminists@law, 2019

The exceptionalism attributed to acts of sexualised violence in war has reinforced the idea that ... more The exceptionalism attributed to acts of sexualised violence in war has reinforced the idea that what happens in war is different from that occurring outside of war. This counters long-standing feminist scholarship which has argued that violence against women (VAW) in conflict is a reflection of the everyday, mundane ways that women experience violence in their everyday lives. The paper presents a new ‘pre, during- and post-conflict framework’ to map, on the basis of theory and empirics, the inter-relationship between VAW within and outside conflict. Applied to the case study of Timor-Leste, the paper finds that common across time and space are the sustained presence of gendered harms, and that VAW is ambulant in nature and responsive to context, identifying connections and distinctions in VAW across conflict-time and peace-time. Through analysis of the Timor-Leste truth commission’s outcomes, the paper argues that an understanding of this complexity to VAW is essential to advancing...