Many countries across the globe have set forth in their constitutions a gender equality clause, followed by legislation and regulation aimed at guaranteeing it. If one were to analyze only the number of laws, executive regulation and judicial protection in diverse regions this seems to be a narrative of progress. In this session we will explore a series political economy insights and critical moves to nuance this account. Gender diverse population continues to be plagued by poverty, exclusion and the dispossession that comes from the intersection between identity, class and race. Describing progressive constitutional, legal and administrative provisions says very little about why these problems continue to prevail.
About the speaker:
Helena Alviar García is a Colombian SJD from Harvard Law School and lawyer from Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. She served as Dean of Los Andes Law School where she also held tenure as full professor (profesora titular), teaching courses on Property, Public law, legal theory and feminist theory. An expert in law and development, property law, social and economic rights, feminism and transitional justice, she has been invited to participate in global networks regarding these issues and has edited and co-edited volumes with academics from Europe and the United States. She is the author of books, book chapters, published academic papers, and essays including: Authoritarian Constitutionalism: Critique and Appraisal, co-edited with Günter Frankenberg (2019); The Distributive Politics of Impunity and Anti-Impunity: Lesssons from Four Decades of Colombian Peace Negotiations (co-authored with Karen Engle), in Anti-Impunity and the Human Rights Agenda (2016), Distribution of resources led by courts: a few words of caution in Social and Economic Rights in Theory and Practice (2014), Feminismo y crítica jurídica. El análisis distributivo como alternativa crítica al legalismo liberal coauthored with Isabel Jaramillo (2012), The Unending Quest for Land: The Tale of Broken Constitutional Promises in the Texas Law Review Symposium (2011); Legal Reform, Social Policy, and Gendered Redistribution in Colombia: The Role of the Family in the American University Journal of Gender Social Policy & the Law; Law, Development, and Feminism in Latin America in 2008.