WO=MEN in New York

On 12 March 2026, Lawyers for Lawyers, in collaboration with its partners, hosted “Voices from the frontline: women lawyers advancing access to justice,” as side event during the 70th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW70). The CSW priority theme this year focused on ensuring and strengthening access to justice for all women and girls.   The event, co-sponsored by the International Bar Association Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI), the American Bar Association (ABA), and the Governments of Mexico, the Netherlands, and Canada, brought together speakers from different regions to reflect on the critical role of women lawyers in advancing justice. The discussion highlighted the systemic barriers, specific risks, and discrimination they face, while amplifying their voices and fostering collaboration to strengthen accountability and promote gender equality within the legal profession. The event opened with remarks by Patricia Carranza Rodríguez, Director General of Intelligence, Innovat...

Across global conversations today, many people are arriving at a shared intuition: the future cannot be built through domination, extraction, and control. If we call that intuition “matriarchal,” we don’t mean a simple reversal of power. We mean a different system. A system in which an economy is organized around care, relationships, and collective responsibility. A system in which women’s and girls’ access to justice includes dignified livelihoods, decision-making power, and economic autonomy. Such a future can feel abstract, even impossible. We have strong language to critique what is failing but we have fewer shared practices that make alternative realities workable. Our contribution at CSW70 NGO Forum was to offer a grounded pathway: community-led, place-based regeneration through multiple value creation , in which ecological, social, cultural, aesthetic, and financial value are held together rather than traded off. This work builds on over five years of learning with circular ...

  Tot het allerlaatste moment bleef het spannend: zou de VN-Vrouwentop dit jaar worden geopend met een gezamenlijk overeengekomen slotdocument, of niet? Ieder jaar zijn er wel onzekere momenten. Jarenlang betekende dit dat de onderhandelingen complete nachten doorgingen totdat hongerige en vermoeide vertegenwoordigers van de VN Lidstaten dan – meestal – toch wel tot een consensus kwamen. Maar in de 70 jaar dat de Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), zoals dit proces eigenlijk heet, plaats vindt is het nog niet eerder tot een stemming gekomen.   Luid gejuich en geklap in de General Assembly hal van de Verenigde Staten bevestigt dat het uiteindelijk toch is gelukt: het slotdocument, de Agreed Conclusions genaamd, is in de mooie General Assembly aangenomen met een ruime meerderheid. Het scherm met de uitslag van de stemming laat helder zien dat de Verenigde Staten uiteindelijk toch alleen stonden in hun verzet: 37 voor, 6 onthoudingen, en 1 tegenstem. Joyce Brummelman, ...

Photo: Sophie de Graaf presents her pitch During the NGO briefing for the 70th UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), various experts presented their pitches with recommendations to the delegation. The meeting took place at the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW in Dutch) on January 28, 2026. All four pitches are available here (in Dutch or English) on this CSW blog page. The third pitch was given by Sophie de Graaf on behalf of Lawyers for Lawyers . Lawyers for Lawyers is an independent, non-political and not-for-profit organisation established in 1986. In 2026, Lawyers for Lawyers will launch its Breaking Barriers: Women Lawyers Campaign. This initiative aims to contribute to a legal environment in which women lawyers can practice safely, advance professionally, and fully exercise their rights as lawyers. No Justice Without Women Lawyers  Access to justice for women and girls does not exist in a vacuum. It depends on the people who make justice systems work- fi...

Photo of the UN in Geneva   Tijdens de NGO briefing voor de 70ste VN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) presenteerden diverse experts hun pitches met aanbevelingen aan de delegatie. De bijeenkomst vond plaats op het ministerie van OCW (onderwijs, cultuur en wetenschap) op 28 januari 2026. Alle 4 de pitches staan hier (in het Nederlands of Engels) op deze CSW blogpagina. De eerste pitch werd gegeven door Linda Mans namens het Netwerk VN-Vrouwenverdrag . Linda is een van de vertegenwoordigers uit het maatschappelijk middenveld in Nederland die de komende week naar Geneve reizen voor de constructieve dialoog van het CEDAW Comite met Nederland. Het belang van CEDAW voor het bereiken van ‘access to justice’  Nederland heeft zich met de ratificatie van het VN-Vrouwenverdrag (CEDAW) verplicht tot het actief bevorderen van gendergelijkheid en het tegengaan van discriminatie van vrouwen. Dit vraagt niet alleen formele naleving, maar samenhangend en effectief beleid dat aansluit b...

The 69th meeting of the UN's Commission on the Status of Women (CSW69) marked the 30th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women which took place in 1995 in Beijing, China. It was Jennifer Bushee’s first time attending the CSW in New York. The following are some of her key insights from the plenitude of sessions addressing topics as diverse as pushback on rights and gender; gender justice; climate justice; economic justice; and Big Tech   Equity and Economic Sense     Unpaid labour continues to be a major concern. UNRISD ’s session , “Addressing structural barriers for progress on the BPfA [Beijing Platform for Action] : Financing Care systems as a development strategy” on 19 March addressed the problems of not remunerating childcare, eldercare, support for individuals with disabilities, and domestic labor. The work is essential for functioning societies , but remains undervalued, invisible, and unevenly distributed — disproportionately impacting women a...