Australia must champion women's rights in the Security Council

An article published this week by Katrina Lee-Koo and Susan Harris Rimmer has examined the need for Australia to take a proactive role in championing women's rights on the UN Security Council. 

Representatives from civil society organisations will soon meet with the government in Canberra to discuss Australia's agendas during its first one-month stint as President of the Security Council in September 2013. The role will see Australia assume important responsibility for managing the crisis management powers of the Council, and also provides an opportunity to promote broader issues. 

Lee-Koo and Rimmer have said that Australia is well-positioned to build upon its committment to the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, and should take the opportunity to promote this important cause. 

The agenda originated from five Security Council resolutions passed between 2000 and 2010. These recognise the ways in which, due to their gender, women and girls experience conflict in ways that are different from men, and the fact that abuses of women's rights are often overlooked in the processes designed to promote peace. Since 1990, only 16% of peace agreements either had women at the negotiation table, or made mention to women in the agreement. In its history, the UN has never appointed a woman to be the chief mediator of the peace process. 

The resolutions also promote the view that peace is often more sustainable where women are included in the processes for conflict prevention and resolution. They call upon the member states to include women in all stages of the UN's work, and to ensure that gender is taken into account when formulating responses to conflict. 

In 2012, Australia released a National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security in 2012, aimed at implementing the WPS agenda domestically and internationally. The plan affirms Australia's committment to including women in peace negotiations. 

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