Annex I(33)-(34): Beijing Declaration
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/28
33. Ensure respect for international law, including humanitarian law, in order to protect women and girls in particular;
34. Develop the fullest potential of girls and women of all ages, ensure their full and equal participation in building a better world for all and enhance their role in the development process.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Annex I(33) and Annex I(34) of the Beijing Declaration stipulate the need for women and girls to have protection within the confines of the rule of law, and in particular international law and humanitarian law. The ability of a state to impose its will on the women of the population can be easily seen in history textbooks and even now.
The question then becomes the ways in which women can be more fully integrated into the power structures of the society and then have appropriate protections through the international legal order. This is not a an easy problem. Women and girls have the rights and protections listed in a variety of ways. However, we still maintain a sense of the vulnerability of the females of the species given the statistics about violence alone.
This raises important questions about the reality of the situation for women and girls and then the rights and protections stated for them in the first place. This is not an easy problem to even quantify within that context. But then, how to best move forward for the international legal protections of women, it is something of which people were aware of in 1995 on the international scene.
However, the respect for international law is something in question for several decades too – with the decrease in respect for international law through war crimes and other violations of international law carried out by major nations in the global order while also having a power of veto to prevent proper democratic voting procedures to have actions taken against the major violators of human rights and, in particular, women’s rights.
Annex I(34) covers more of the potential of women and girls through all ages. The key phrase is “fullest potential” because not every nation is at the same stage of socio-economic development, which should, in a realistic sense, limit expectations – though outliers exist in every nation and generation – about the meaning of fullest potential for the people involved there.
As we can see in many developing nations, the simple right to vote or the provisions of the basic necessities of life begins to reach the upper echelons and gifts of the society to the public, to the women of the country. The fullest potential of one nation-state or even subculture is not the same as the other. Life remains relative.
For the women and girls of all ages, the intent is to ensure their rights and privileges are kept, not revoked, by any personal, familial, national, or international actor or agent. This, as per the international research, coincides with the development of nations and the greater well-being of women – the increased respect and expansion of women’s rights being implemented for the benefit of all.
This helps not only the individual nations taking part in it. Indeed, it helps with the enhancement of the full process of development because, in an obvious way, the nation works within its 100% capacity through the inclusion of women rather than at half-mast through denial of women and girls, regardless of age, the equal opportunities as the men.
The next question then becomes the places in which this can better be implemented and supported through international law protections. Because the force of a global legal order and rights framework can pressure entire states or nations to behave more properly and within the confines of the norms of the international community idealized in its international rights documents and enshrined in its legal frameworks.
–One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (1993).
- Beijing Declaration(1995).
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
In-Sight Publishing 