The Necessity of Multi-Stranded Feminist Judicial Opinions

Abstract

This article examines and evaluates Feminist Judgments of Aotearoa New Zealand, Te Rino: A Two Stranded Rope, the latest published book in the growing collection of global feminist judgments projects, locating it within the context of the other global feminist judgments projects.

Feminist Judgments projects are exploding across the globe, with completed projects in Canada, England, Australia, the United States and Ireland, an international law feminist judgments project well under way, and projects in Scotland, India, Mexico and Africa in process. In the U.S., a series of subject-matter specific feminist judgment books is in progress, the first volume of which has already been published. The participants in these projects have asked what difference a judge with a feminist perspective could have made in the reasoning or result in a case, and then attempted to show, through the writing of “shadow opinions,” what that judgment might look like.

Through the lens of Feminist Judgments: Te Rino, this article explores and compares how the various international Feminist Judgments projects have taken on the enduring jurisprudential question of how much a judge’s individual perspective matters in decision making.

Keywords: Feminism, Feminist Legal Theory, Judicial Opinions, International Law, Comparative Law

JEL Classification: K14, K10, K33