ABSTRACT

This chapter considers quota policies that make mandatory for a particular percentage or number of women to be represented in a particular forum with reference to law, on the one hand, and social practices, on the other. It examines international laws that contributed to gender justice movements and state policy-making, thereby impacting quota laws and initiatives. The chapter addresses a few conceptual points from the perspective of international law. It argues that quota laws are the product of a certain time and place, and have not always improved women's conditions. The chapter proposes the efforts of social activists and advocates and the strength of policies that have served to support quota laws and to help improve conditions for gender justice. It also demonstrates how the foregoing phenomena, the incremental global acceptance of rules and norms through local social practices, the social life of quotas can best be understood by cross-case comparison, through my analysis of quotas in Argentina and Pakistan.