International law expert Hilary Charlesworth, the University law school’s 24th holder of the Wayne Morse Chair of Law and Politics, will discuss the role of women in international law in a speech entitled “The Missing Voice: Women and the War in Iraq,” on Wednesday.
“We generally think about war, conflict and nation-building but only occasionally think about women as part of those issues,” Charlesworth said. “I’m saying we should approach it in a different way.”
Charlesworth said women are largely absent from the debates and rebuilding of Iraq, which reflects a discrepancy in the broader field of international law.
Charlesworth said out of 15 judges on the International Court of Justice only one is a woman. In the United Nations in general, progress toward equality for women has also been slow, she said.
Margaret Hallock, director of the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics, said Charlesworth
is a “renowned scholar in the
international field.”
“She’s been extremely important in pointing out how women’s issues are important in economic development in prosecution of war crimes and other aspects of international law,” Hallock said.
Charlesworth, an international law professor from the Australian National University, in Canberra, teaches Sex, Gender and Human Rights at the law school, which will be taken over by another professor when she returns to Australia on Feb. 4.
Charlesworth’s speech will begin at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in Knight Law Center 175 at 1515 Agate St. For more information call 346-3700.

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