Gender Equality and Human Rights

The UN Women Discussion Paper Series is a new initiative led by the Research and Data section. The Series features research commissioned as background papers for publications by leading researchers from different national and regional contexts. Each paper benefits from an anonymous external peer review process before being published in this Series. This paper has been produced for the UN Women flagship report Progress of the World’s Women 2015 by Sandra Fredman FBA QC, Hon Rhodes Professor of the Laws of the British Commonwealth and the USA, Oxford University and Beth Goldblatt, Associate Professor, University of Technology, Sydney (With valuable research assistance by Meghan Campbell, D Phil candidate, Oxford University