Current histories seem to suggest that men alone have been capable of the development of ideas, analysis, and practice of international law until the 1990s. Is this the case? Or have others been erased from the collective images of this history, including the portrait gallery of notables in international law?
Portraits of Women in International Law: New Names and Forgotten Faces? investigates the slow and late inclusion of women in the spheres of knowledge and power in international law. The forty-two textual and visual representations by a diverse team of passionate portraitists represent women and gender non-conforming people in international law from the fourteenth century onwards around the world: individuals and groups who imagined, developed, or contested international law; who earned their living in its institutions; or who, even indirectly, may have changed its course.
This rich volume calls for a critical identification of the formal and informal institutional practices, norms, and rituals of (white) masculinities, both in the past and in the research of international law today. By abandoning reductive histories, their biased frames, and tacit assumptions, this work brings previously unseen glimpses of international law and its agents, ideas, causes, behaviour, norms, and social practices into the spotlight.
"Karen Knop: Foreword: Looking at Portraits I. OPENING THE EXHIBITION 1: Immi Tallgren: Re-curating the Portrait Gallery of International Law: The Objectives, Process, and Floorplan of the Exhibition II. THE VESTIBULE OF THE LEGENDARY ANCIENTS 2: Franck Latty: Christine de Pizan: The Law of Warfare as Seen by a Medieval Woman 3: Anne Lagerwall and Agatha Verdebout: Olympe de Gouges: Beyond the Symbol 4: Deborah Whitehall: The Reign of Order and the Rights of Siege According to Rosa Luxemburg 5: Henk Nellen: Maria van Reigersberch: Wife of Hugo Grotius III. FIGUREHEADS OF FIGHTING FOR PEACE 6: Janne E. Nijman: Bertha von Suttner: Locating International Law in Novel and Salon 7: Kate Grady and Gina Heathcote: Jane Addams: Positive Peace from the Everyday to the International IV. THE WINTER GARDEN OF ABOLITION AND RESISTANCE: WOMEN AGAINST SLAVERY, RACISM AND IMPERIALISM 8: Christopher Gevers: Anna Julia Cooper: A Voice from the (Global) South 9: Sarah Riley Case: Homelands of Mary Ann Shadd 10: Vasuki Nesiah: Avabai Wadia: A Gentle Rebel of (Other) Nations? V. THE HALL OF DIVERSITY OF FEMINIST ACTIVISM IN INTERNATIONAL LAW 11: Frédéric Mégret: Ghénia Avril de Sainte-Croix: Abolitionism and the League of Nations 12: Keina Yoshida: Yayori Matsui: Challenging the Silences of International Law through Pan Asian Feminist Solidarity 13: Michael Addaney: Canonizing the Memory of Annie Ruth Jiagge in the Global Efforts Toward Gender Equality VI. THE HALL OF WOMEN FOR SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT BY INTERNATIONAL LAW: A NORDIC DREAM? 14: Anne Orford: Alva Myrdal: The Rise and Fall of Social Democratic Internationalism 15: Miriam Bak Mackenna: Ester Boserup: Women and Development on the Margins 16: Raimo Lintonen: Helvi Sipilä: Advocating Women's Rights at the UN VII. THE BREAKERS OF THE GLASS CEILING: THE 'FIRST AND ONLY' IN INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS 17: Immi Tallgren and Antoine Buchet: Suzanne Bastid: The First of the 'Firsts' 18: Boyd van Dijk: Marguerite Frick-Cramer: A Life Spent Shaping the Geneva Conventions 19: Parvathi Menon: Vijayalakshmi Pandit: Gendering and Racing against the Postcolonial Predicament 20: Jan Klabbers: The Timing of Felice Morgenstern 21: Ana Caldeira Fouto, António Pedro Barbas Homem, and Pedro Caridade de Freitas: Paula Escarameia: Envisioning the Humane Face of International Law in the Twenty-first Century VIII. THE OTHER GROUP PICTURES IN INTERNATIONAL LAW 22: Roxana Banu: Forgotten Female Actors in Private International Law: The International Social Service 23: Benjamin Auberer: Female Staff in the Legal Section of the League of Nations 24: Bérénice K. Schramm: The 'Indigenous Women' Behind the 'Other' Beijing Declaration 25: Anna van der Velde: The Women's Caucus for Gender Justice: Writing Gender into International Criminal Law IX. THE MISSING FACES OF THE FACULTY CORRIDORS 26: Imogen Saunders: Sarah Wambaugh: Life at the Frontiers of International Law 27: Alexandra Kemmerer: Exile and Access: Lilly Melchior Roberts and the Infrastructures of International Law 28: Serena Forlati: Lea Meriggi: A Fighter For the Wrong Cause 29: Christiaan Verwer and Anna van der Velde: Isabella Diederiks-Verschoor: (A Life) Creating Spaces 30: Sarah MH Nouwen and Wouter Werner: Gezina van der Molen: A Journey from Universalism to Pluralism 31: Sara Seck: Elisabeth Mann Borgese: Ecology, Relationality, and Law of the Sea 32: Reut Paz: Marie Theres Fögen: The Universalization of a Rotten Deal 33: Marilena Papadaki: Kalliopi Koufa: First Greek Female Academic of Public International Law X. THE ROOF-TOP GALLERY OF DIPLOMACY AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 34: Shinya Murase: Thomas Baty in Japan: Seeing through the Twilight 35: Margaret Kuo: Zheng Yuxiu and the Diplomacy of Nationalism and Feminism 36: Hatsue Shinohara: Marjorie M. Whiteman: Not Flowers but a Medal 37: Sergey Vasiliev: Aleksandra Kollontai: 'New Woman' 38: Andrei Mamolea: The Role of International Law in Paulina Luisi's Activism 39: Luiza Le=ao Soares Pereira: Working from 'Rooms of Their Own': For a Realistic Portrait of Joyce Gutteridge CBE and Other Trailblazing Women XI. PORTRAITS OF ARTISTS, JOURNALISTS AND VISIONARIES OF INTERNATIONAL LAW 40: Outi Korhonen: ""If Only They Listened to Simone Weil"": From Rights to Roots 41: Ksenia Shestakova: Helene Halperin-Ginsburg: The Social Function of International Law 42: Mai Taha: Human Rights and Communist Internationalism: On Inji Aflatoun and the Surrealists 43: Dianne Otto: Fearless Speech: A Portrait of UN Typist Shirley Hazzard Hilary Charlesworth: Epilogue: Exit through the Gift Shop"
Immi Tallgren is Adjunct Professor of International Law at the University of Helsinki and Senior KONE Research Fellow at the Erik Castrén Institute of International Law and Human Rights. She has previously worked at the Finnish MFA, the Legal Affairs Unit of EUROPOL, the European Space Agency, and the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg. Her research interests are primarily in international criminal law, history of international law, law and cinema, and feminist approaches to international law. Her recent publications include The Dawn of a Discipline: International Criminal Justice and its Early Exponents (with Frédéric Mégret, CUP, 2020) and Retrials: The New Histories of International Criminal Law (with Thomas Skouteris, OUP, 2019).
Reviews for Portraits of Women in International Law: New Names and Forgotten Faces?
What an imaginatively assembled collection of essays. Overflowing with engrossing vignettes and unexpected characters, this is international law but not as we know it. No less than a re-writing and upending of international legal history. And seriously pleasurable! * Gerry Simpson, Professor of International Law, London School of Economics * Immi Tallgren has produced one of the most creative edited volumes in the history of international law and international relations that I have seen. This is a remarkable achievement, a field-defining piece of work. * Patricia Owens, Professor of International Relations, University of Oxford * Anyone curious about the lives and work of our mothers in the law will find these individual essays interesting and illuminating. * Susan McFadden, Solicitor and US lawyer, retired from the London-based US immigration firm Gudeon & McFadden., Law Society Gazette *
- Winner of Winner, 2024 Joseph Fletcher Prize for Best Edited Book in Historical International Relations, International Studies Association.
