Queen's Law to host conference on international feminist constitutionalism

Photo by Alexandra Manthorpe

Three of the Queen's Law faculty members involved with the International Conference on Feminist Constitutionalism:  Professor Sharryn Aiken, panellist, Professor Beverley Baines, co-organizer, and Professor Bita Amani, co-director of Feminist Legal Studies Queen's.

On February 28 and March 1, 2009, Queen's Law will welcome some of the legal world's preeminent scholars for a conference on international feminist constitutionalism.  The conference, co-organized by Professors Beverley Baines and Tsvi Kahana of Queen's Law and Professor Daphne Barak-Erez of the University of Tel Aviv, will debate how constitutions are succeeding, or failing, to protect women's rights both in Canada and internationally. 

Many of the conference's speakers are Canadian, but international and comparative feminist perspectives will also be explored.  Panellists will be arriving in Kingston from as far away as Hong Kong, Argentina, Spain, Romania, South Africa and India to add their voices to the conference's discourse.  The participants, delegates, and keynote speakers will discuss important issues, including human rights, constitutional interpretation, access to justice, reproductive rights, multiculturalism, and social and economic rights.

"I'm really excited about the number of speakers who want to come and talk about something that sounds as esoteric as feminist constitutionalism," said Baines.  "The wide range of topics and perspectives make it clear it's fundamental to the lives of many women around the world, and men as well."  

In addition to the expert panellists, the conference organizers are excited to welcome Professor Reva Siegel of Yale University and Professor Jennifer Nedelsky of the University of Toronto as the keynote speakers.

Siegel is Yale Law School's Deputy Dean and a noted writer.  Her research explores questions of inequality and analyzes how courts interact with popular social movements and governments when it comes to constitutional interpretation.  In 2004, she co-edited Directions in Sexual Harassment Law.  Her next book, coming out this year, is titled The Constitution in 2020.

Nedelsky's main areas of research have been comparative constitutionalism, feminist theory and American constitutional history and interpretation.  In 2001, she co-edited (with Ronald Beiner) Judgment, Imagination and Politics: Themes From Kant and Arendt. She's currently working on two books, Law, Autonomy and the Relational Self: A Feminist Revisioning of the Foundations of Law and Human Rights and Judgment: A Relational Approach , which will be published by the Oxford University Press.

"Feminist constitutionalism is an extremely important field of study," said Kahana. "I am very proud to be one of the organizers of this conference that puts Queen's Law at the centre of the development of an emerging, important and exciting field."

The conference is co-sponsored by the Law Foundation of Ontario, Office of the Principal and Office of Research Services at Queen's University, Queen's Law, the Faculty of Law at the University of Tel Aviv, and Feminist Legal Studies Queen's.  The event begins at 9:00 a.m. Saturday, February 28 at the Donald Gordon Conference Centre. 

For the program and to register, please visit:  http://law.queensu.ca/events/upcomingConferences0809.html