To explain how constitutions shape and are shaped by women's lives, the contributors to this volume examine constitutional cases pertaining to women in twelve countries. Analyzing jurisprudence about ...reproductive, sexual, familial, socio-economic, and democratic rights, they focus constructively on women's claims to equality, asking who makes these claims, what constitutional rights inform them, how they have evolved, what arguments work in defending them, and how they relate to other national issues. Their findings reveal significant similarities in outcomes and in reasoning about women's constitutional rights in these twelve countries, challenging the tradition of distinguishing constitutional jurisprudence depending on whether the country has a written or unwritten constitution, subscribes to civil or common law, is a federal or unitary state, limits constitutional adjudication to the public domain, accords international norms binding or subject to incorporation force, or relies on a specialized or general court to adjudicate constitutional matters.
Abstract
This article underscores the foundational exclusion of women from constitution-making as an expression of the ideology of separate and gendered spheres dominant at the birth of written ...constitutionalism. It traces the incorporation of women into constitution-making within a broader gender equality participatory turn taking place, since the late 1980s and especially 1990s, coinciding in time with the rise of popular constitutionalism more broadly speaking. By looking at a variety of examples drawn from multiple jurisdictions across the world, it explores the forms of participation of women in constitution-making both through their gradual (though yet insufficient) incorporation into official constitution-making bodies and institutions and, more importantly, through civil society mobilization. It claims that without taking into account the structural dimension of women’s traditional exclusion from the public sphere and constitution-making it is not possible to have an adequate comprehension of the strategies, challenges, meaning, and impact of women joining constitution-making, all of which I briefly describe.
Because of their unique properties, multipotent mesenchymal stem cells （MSCs） represent one of the most prom- ising adult stem cells being used worldwide in a wide array of clinical applications. ...Overall, compelling evidence supports the long-term safety of ex vivo expanded human MSCs, which do not seem to transform spontaneously. However, experimental data reveal a link between MSCs and cancer, and MSCs have been reported to inhibit or promote tumor growth depending on yet undefined conditions. Interestingly, solid evidence based on transgenic mice and genetic intervention of MSCs has placed these cells as the most likely cell of origin for certain sarcomas. This research area is being increasingly explored to develop accurate MSC-based models of sarcomagenesis, which will be undoubtedly valuable in providing a better understanding about the etiology and pathogenesis of mesenchymal cancer, eventually leading to the development of more specific therapies directed against the sarcoma-initiating cell. Unfortunately, still little is known about the mechanisms underlying MSC transformation and further studies are required to develop bona fide sarcoma models based on human MSCs. Here, we comprehensively review the exist- ing MSC-based models of sarcoma and discuss the most common mechanisms leading to tumoral transformation of MSCs and sarcomagenesis.
Abstract
The article explores the different constitutional developments of the right to gender recognition and discusses their potential to protect trans and nonbinary people. Focusing on a few ...selected jurisdictions, each incarnating a specific kind of recognition system, it also proposes a conceptual map to understand and identify the different shapes of such a right. The article argues that four types of gender recognition can be identified, each with their own characteristics, advantages, peculiarities, and set of challenges for trans and nonbinary people and for the system of gender categorization itself. In clarifying this area of law, the article contends that the very process of creation and policing of gender identities and categories represents a critical aspect of contemporary gender constitutionalism.
Modern constitutions play, to a larger or lesser extent, several simultaneous political functions, including the definition of a rights-based political order, the organization of state powers, and ...the crafting of the nation. Feminist analysis of constitutional law has so far primarily focused on the denial or limitation of an equal rights status to women since the inception of constitutions. More recently, it has also challenged the gender composition of state institutions as well as the gendered implications of the various forms of government and power structures. In times of worldwide expanding nationalism, serious reflection on the many ways in which nationalism has always been, and still is, a gendered enterprise is called for. Relying on the categories identified in the work of Yuval-Davis, this article distinguishes between nationalist ideologies that focus on the definition of citizenship in specific states and territories (the "Staatnation"), those that place an emphasis on specific cultures or religions (the "Kulturnation"), and those that are constructed around the specific origin of the people and its continuation into the future (the "Volknation"). This article also shows, relying on the example of several contemporary constitutional struggles across the world, how these three dimensions of nationalism often continue to deny equal constitutional citizenship to women and sexual minorities.
Abstract
On February 2, 2016, Prof. Ruth Rubio-Marín, Chair of Constitutional and Comparative Public Law at the European University Institute (EUI), interviewed the U.S. Supreme Court Associate ...Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The interview took place in the framework of the European University Institute’s annual Ursula Hirschmann Lecture, a space dedicated to stimulate research and thinking which links ideas about Europe and the study of gender. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg engaged in a conversation that tackled her whole persona, without making rigid divides between the professional and the personal. Deep legal analysis, personal anecdotes, and invaluable advice for future researchers and lawyers intertwine in the interview, which sheds light on important dimensions of equality law.
This article discusses the case‐law on gender recognition of the Colombian Constitutional Court. It argues that the Court, paying attention to queer and trans theory and to the demands of trans ...activists, has interpreted mainstream constitutional rights in such a way that trans people can have their self‐defined identities recognised. The article criticises the limitations of this case‐law, which still does not explicitly include non‐binary and gender fluid people. On the other hand, it highlights that the Court's doctrine has the potential to challenge both the gender binary and the very category of ‘sex’ or ‘gender’ in the law.
To this day, the Spanish Constitution still sanctions the rule of male preference accession to the throne and, as such, the institution of the monarchy in Spain is not gender egalitarian. This ...article explores why, in spite of widespread societal consensus around the need to change this, the rule favoring male heirs continues to exist in a broader political context that makes any kind of constitutional reform hugely contested. The article discusses continuities and ruptures in the gendered patterns of behaviour and symbolic representation expected from and enshrined in the current king and queen consort, who have felt pressure to modernize an institution that is increasingly challenged. It finally raises the question as to whether the true feminist path requires going beyond rendering the monarchy gender neutral in the law, and even challenging traditional gender roles within its way of operating and simply abolishing it as a relic of the inherently authoritarian and patriarchal forms of government of the past.
Reparation programs seeking to provide for victims of gross and systematic human rights violations are becoming an increasingly frequent feature of transitional and post-conflict processes. Given ...that women represent a very large proportion of the victims of these conflicts and authoritarianism, it makes sense to examine whether reparation programs can be designed to redress women more fairly and efficiently and seek to subvert gender hierarchies that often antecede the conflict. Focusing on themes such as reparations for victims of sexual and reproductive violence, reparations for children and other family members, as well as gendered understandings of monetary, symbolic, and collective reparations, this text gathers information about how past or existing reparation projects dealt with gender issues, identifies best practices to the extent possible, and articulates innovative approaches and guidelines to the integration of a gender perspective in the design and implementation of reparations for victims of human rights violations.
Partiendo de los giros participativos que el constitucionalismo y la agenda de empoderamiento de las mujeres experimentan a partir de los años noventa, el artículo analiza su creciente participación ...en los procesos y órganos de elaboración constitucional, así como su participación en procesos constituyentes en otros ámbitos, principalmente a través de la movilización de la sociedad civil. Tomando ejemplos del constitucionalismo global contemporáneo en distintas áreas geográficas, el artículo ilustra las nuevas posibilidades que el constitucionalismo participativo abre para las mujeres, así como la tipología de retos que siguen enfrentando y de estrategias que desarrollan para superarlos y para lograr que su participación se traduzca en poder real y efectivo dentro de los espacios de creación constitucional, tanto oficiales como informales.
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