This chapter portrays the initial appearance of modern public law in late eighteen-century Europe as homocentric, and its gradual profiling, in the centuries to follow, across the globe, as gender-balanced. It also addresses the reforming force of the international instruments in achieving gender-balanced public law on a national level, as well as the inherent limits of those instruments due to the inevitable pluralism of public law approaches to gender equality in areas of reasonable disagreement. Furthermore, authors will analyse structural, institutional, and cultural factors that play a part in the underrepresentation of women at all worldwide governmental levels. However, they emphasise that electing more women in state institutions is only the first step. What is necessary is to ensure that women have a tangible impact on public policies. Thus, they conclude that empowering women is a multi-layered process that is much more complex than choosing an equal number of women in state institutions. Public law aspects on gender-based violence as well as anti-discrimination measures are also included in this chapter.

This chapter will provide an overview on several aspects of the gender perspective in Human Rights Law. The chapter will therefore look at the civil and political rights from a gender perspective, as well as social, economic and cultural rights of women, non-binary and LGBTIQA+ persons. The aim is to increase the students’ awareness for the gender perspective in international human rights protection, by providing an overview of currently discussed issues in this area. Such issues include the prohibition of gender-based violence, contemporary forms of slavery and trafficking in persons, the freedom of religion, the right to private life, access to justice for women, women’s (political) empowerment, the prohibition of economic and social discrimination, and women’s right to education.