Constituting Equality: Gender Equality and Comparative Constitutional Law

1. Gender Quotas in Politics – A Constitutional Challenge
2. Equality, Representation, and Challenge to Hierarchy: Justifying Electoral Quotas for Women
3. More than Rights
4. Perfectionism and Fundamentalism in the Application of the German Abortion Laws
5. Moral Authority in English and American Abortion Law
6. Must Feminists Support Entrenchment of Sex Equality? Lessons from Quebec
7. Deconstructing the East/West Binary: Substantive Equality and Islamic Marriage in a Comparative Dialogue
8. Conflicting Agendas? Women’s Rights and Customary Law in African Constitutional Reform
9. Gender Equality and the Rule of Law in Liberia: Statutory Law, Customary Law, and the Status of Women
10. Constitutional Incorporation of International and Comparative Human Rights Law: The Colombian Constitutional Court Decision C-355/2006
11. Guatemalan Transnational Feminists: How Their Search for Constitutional Equality Interplays with International Law
12. Women in the Constitutional Drafting Process in Burma
13. Founding Mothers for a Palestinian Constitution?

Constituting Equality addresses the question, how would you write a constitution if you really cared about gender equality? The book takes a design-oriented approach to the broad range of issues that arise in constitutional drafting concerning gender equality. Each section of the book examines a particular set of constitutional issues or doctrines across a range of different countries to explore what works, where, and why. Topics include (1) governmental structure (particularly electoral gender quotas); (2) rights provisions; (3) constitutional recognition for cultural or religious practices that discriminate against women; (4) domestic incorporation of international law; and (5) the role of women in the process of constitution-making. Interdisciplinary in orientation and global in scope, the book provides a menu for constitutional designers and others interested in how the fundamental legal order might more effectively promote gender equality