United Nations

This is the introductory article to Gender & Development issue 28(2) Beijing +25

The multilateral decision-making enabled by the United Nations (UN), as the world’s only forum for negotiating agreements between almost all countries, has been both fertile and frustrating for advancing women’s rights. The 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women at Beijing, held at a post-Cold War high point in international co-operation, generated a significant political settlement […]

This is a personal history of a feminist journey which began in the period leading up to the United Nations Fourth Conference on Women at Beijing in 1995. It offers a first-hand account that might also reflect the experiences of many other feminists globally. This experience of participation in the preparations for Beijing, and attendance […]

The multilateral decision-making enabled by the United Nations (UN), as the world’s only forum for negotiating agreements between almost all countries, has been both fertile and frustrating for advancing women’s rights. The 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women at Beijing, held at a post-Cold War high point in international co-operation, generated a significant political settlement […]

The United Nations Foundation’s Girl Up campaign has been criticised by many feminists for perpetuating patronising discourses that see girls and women in the Global North as the saviours of their counterparts in the South, while doing little to challenge underlying global inequalities. This article draws on focus group data with Girl Up club members […]

This article examines the new agenda for sustainable development adopted by the United Nations, to see if it contains policies for gender equity and equality as well as for sustainable development in tune with planetary boundaries. It finds that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are not ambitious and lack a systematic policy approach. It therefore […]

The Arms Trade Treaty, the first treaty to regulate the international transfer of conventional arms and ammunition, was adopted in 2013 at the United Nations. It aims to regulate the flow of weapons around the world by requiring governments to assess all arms transfers against a set of criteria, before the transfer is authorised or denied. The agreed criteria […]