The Hague celebrating the achievements of Women Groundbreakers in the first International Courts: Address by Louise Arbour High Commissioner or Human Rights

The Hague, March 8 2007

Dear Friends,

I am both grateful and honoured to share this occasion with you.

Cynics, and a few miserable souls who don’t readily rejoice in the accomplishments of others, are probably asking themselves what today’s fuss is all about. To some extent they have a point. To recognize and honor the first women who have contributed to the development of international criminal justice is to beg the question: does it make a difference that we are women? In other words, do we think that women make a difference – as women – when they come to occupy functions previously reserved for men? Or are we just celebrating the novelty of women having entered another male preserve, as we expect them to adjust to their new environment, and not vice-versa.

When they exercise power and leadership in the legal profession – particularly in the emerging field of international criminal law – do women “speak in a different voice”, as the work of Carol Gilligan would suggest? Do we bring to our work a different outlook on the world and a different moral judgment?

Or is it more likely that, apart from gender, we have little in common with each other and therefore bring to our work a multiplicity of life experiences, cultural givens, likes and dislikes, such that it can never be said that in our professional capacity we ever act “as women”.

I believe that we have, we are and we will be making a difference individually and collectively “as women”. Our mere presence as judges, prosecutors, defense counsel and court administrators, shatters stereotypes about the role of women in the world and about our place in the workforce. It creates a new “normal” that celebrates, or at least begins to tolerate diversity.

I cannot speak for others as to what it feels like to be the first woman to occupy a function. In my case, it has been the consequence of a series of coincidences. I have also been second, and third. And I have finally been in places where we are no longer counting. I was educated by and with women, and it felt very comfortable to be in their midst.


But when I left the security of that known, homogeneous place, and entered a profession that had long been unwelcoming to women, I felt that I was entering a world that was changing for the better, not because I was in it, but because people like me were in it, and because others, who previously didn’t look the part, could finally believe that it was their world too.