Human Rights and Reproductive Governance in Transnational Perspective (original) (raw)
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This issue focuses on reproductive rights and health as a contribution to the Cairo +5 process that is reviewing the impact, achievements and goals set by the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) held in Cairo, September 1994. As the first issue of volume 42, the discussion on reproductive rights and health brings to the fore human centred and gender aware challenges to development policies grappling with the impact of globalization and economic crises.
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The reproductive rights and health agenda negotiated through agreements made at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), in 1994 and at the five-year review in 1999, is undeniably under attack in the uneasy world of 2003. There are a number of common explanations offered for why. The first is that there is just not enough money. Stringent economic policies imposed by the global economic order are not concurrent with the recommendations of the ICPD and other instruments that aim to put in place a pro-people health policy. Then there are issues around governance. Wavering democratic systems in many countries fail to provide the robust institutions to ensure promises are kept and local needs heard and respected. Then there is the concern about the growing uncontrollability of the unwieldy globalized world. The commodification of sexuality -in advertising, on the Internet, the trafficking in women and girls, the spread of HIV and AIDS -are among the disturbing features highlighted by the press and others that explain the undermining of the reproductive health and rights agenda.
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The challenge of including a gender perspective within human rights work has been a project only recently undertaken by the international human rights community. It is undeniable that much progress has been made over the past two decades in regard to advocacy and legal efforts to protect, promote and fulfil women’s human rights. However, there remain significant shortcomings in how the law is used to address systemic conditions that cause the subordination of women. This article seeks to explore the gap that exists between women’s rights rhetoric and implementation at the national level. An examination of women’s reproductive rights in the Inter-American System of Human Rights serves as a lens by which to explore how international human rights bodies fall short in addressing the gendered implications of women’s rights violations as they are embedded in national cultures.
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Sexual and reproductive health and rights have increasingly been recognized in the international arena, but their evolution and the definition of their scope and content have not been received without controversy. From population control to human rights, from demographers' competence to governmental prerogative, from couples' rights to universal rights, this article will present an overview of the evolution of sexual and reproductive rights in the international arena. The development of these rights cannot be read in isolation but must be analyzed together with the broader landscape that hosts social and political movements, ideologies, religions, and revolutions. Understanding sexual and reproductive health and rights as historical creations, rather than timeless givens, enables us to devise historically informed instruments and policies that are more likely to succeed. This article contributes to the scholarly literature by providing an overview of past trends and of the conditions under which they occurred. Retracing the history of these rights enables us to clarify the scope of the state's obligations to realize the right to sexual and reproductive health, to improve monitoring opportunities, and to ensure accountability for violations. This article explores these (and forthcoming) developments contributing to identify the existing obligations, the relevant actors, and the challenges that lie ahead.