Leiden Socio-legal Series Lecture
Ombuds Institutions: Strengthening Gender Equality, Women’s Access to Justice and Protection and Promotion of Women’s Rights
- Professor Linda C. Reif
- Date
- Wednesday 26 September 2018
- Time
- Location
-
Old Observatory
Sterrenwachtlaan 11
2311 GW Leiden - Room
- C 104
National human rights institutions (NHRIs) in the form of ombuds institutions and classic ombuds are examined critically to explore the extent to which they strengthen gender equality in public administration and their own operations, improve women’s access to justice, and protect and promote women’s rights. Ombuds effectiveness depends not only on their engagement with international and domestic human rights instruments, ranging from the UN Paris Principles on NHRIs to international women’s rights law, but also on extralegal factors. Gender-based violence, gender discrimination and violations of women’s economic, social and cultural rights are the most common issues addressed by all ombuds institutions in this study.
Professor Linda C. Reif, CN Professor of International Trade, University of Windsor (LLB), University of Cambridge (LLM), has been a member of the Faculty of Law, University of Alberta since 1987. Professor Reif has published extensively on national human rights institutions, ombuds institutions, children’s rights institutions, international human rights law and international business and trade. Her work appears in Canadian, US, European and Asia-Pacific publications, including her book, The Ombudsman, Good Governance and the International Human Rights System (Brill/Martinus Nijhoff), with a second edition scheduled for publication in 2019, co-authorship of International Law: Chiefly as Interpreted and Applied in Canada (Emond Montgomery, 9th edition in press), and numerous book chapters and law review articles, including in the Harvard Human Rights Journal and Human Rights Law Review.