Violence against women’s health through the law of the UN Security Council: A critical international feminist law analysis of Resolutions 2467 (2019) and 2493 (2019) within the WPS agenda

The purpose of this research is to analyse UN SC Resolution 2467 (2019)[6] and the subsequent Resolution 2493 (2019) from an international feminist law perspective in light of the women’s right to reproductive health, twenty years after the adoption of UN SC Resolution 1325 (2000). This article argues that international law might be the ultimate cause of violence against women’s health through resolutions adopted by a strictly inter-governmental ‘male’ body such as the UN SC that fails to appreciate the gender-based discrimination rooted in society – prior, during and after conflicts – and, by focusing on a notion of military rather than human security, misses the opportunity to address the violation of women’s right to sexual and reproductive health.

This article argues that international law might be the ultimate cause of violence against women’s health through resolutions adopted by a strictly inter-governmental ‘male’ body such as the UN SC that fails to appreciate the gender-based discrimination rooted in society – prior, during and after conflicts – and, by focusing on a notion of military rather than human security, misses the opportunity to address the violation of women’s right to sexual and reproductive health. The article starts with the contextualisation of the two resolutions within the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, and will then delve into the negotiation and voting procedures that led to their adoption. It will then stress how the texts of Resolutions 2467 (2019) and 2493 (2019) have been water-downed under political pressure of some of the permanent members of the UN SC and how access to sexual and reproductive health services was willingly excluded from the final text.