ABSTRACT
At first glance, the legal system in The Netherlands—where the courts lack the power of judicial review, the concept of amici curae is undeveloped, and interest groups seldom have their own lawyers—seems an unpromising arena for pursuit of interest group litigation. Yet an active practice of women's rights litigation has developed and faces many of the same strategic choices and suffers from many of the same limits of law as a mechanism for changing deeply engrained sexism as has women's rights litigation in the United States. However, differences between the two countries in the structure of the legal profession, the legal and political mechanisms for articulating organized interests, and the particular types of legal problems women encounter, give Dutch feminist litigation its own character.
Susan M. Olson is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Utah.
