ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that international law is built on paradigms which privilege a male perspective, one of which is a distinction between public and private spheres of life. It outlines the theoretical basis of the public/private distinction and the feminist critique of the dichotomy. The chapter then examines the operation of the public/private distinction in one particular area of international law. The dichotomy between public and private activities and spheres is central to liberalism – the dominant political, and legal, philosophy of the West. Feminists link the western identification of women with the domestic sphere with the separation of production from the household and the "privatisation" of the family in the Eighteenth Century together with the growth of capitalism and deeply held beliefs about gender. The right to development was an important aspect of the New International Economic Order promoted, ultimately unsuccessfully, in the 1970s and 80s by Third World countries.
