GQUAL Campaign

GQUAL: A Campaign for Gender Parity in International Representation. Lack of gender parity affects virtually all international tribunals and international bodies that play key roles in developing international law and human rights. Candidates for all these positions are mostly nominated by States and always voted on by their representatives.Yet, no formal selection guidelines exist to ensure parity or diversity across many of these mechanisms. How can we achieve gender equality if the main human rights organisms we expect to protect women’s rights cannot successfully guarantee equal participation within them? Now is the time to ask: how can human rights organisms advocate and decide outcomes for victims of serious human rights violations if those who sit at the decision-making table don’t represent a significant percentage of the population? By promoting better balance for better justice, GQUAL seeks to shatter the glass ceiling faced by women in international representation.