Gaining Access to the “World's Largest Men's Club”: Women Leading UN Agencies

Following the establishment of UN Women in 2010 and the appointment of Christine Lagarde to the position of International Monetary Fund Managing Director in 2011, it appears that today the United Nations (UN) takes gender equality seriously, even within its own leadership ranks. Yet, while research on Women in Politics has paid little attention to women in international organisations, research on leadership in international organisations ignores the question of gender. This is despite an inherent connection between women's political careers domestically and internationally. Evidence suggests that although women have broken through the glass ceiling in international organisations and thus gained access to what has been termed the “world's largest men's club”, women continue to be systematically constrained in a way that enables them to gain access to leadership positions only in specific ways and under specific circumstances. Analysing the role of quotas and the nature of organisations in enabling access through the “glass ceiling”, the limitations of “glass walls” that channel women into gender-specific portfolios, situational dimensions such organisational crisis and instability, and the role of kinship in facilitating access, this paper shows that despite its potential to model and incentivise gender equality, the UN merely replicates domestic patterns of gender inequality.     

Truth and Justice, Inquiry and Advocacy, Science and Law

Abstract. There is tension between the adversarialism of the U.S. legal culture and the investigative procedures of the sciences, and between the law's concern for finality and the open‐ended fallibilism of science. A long history of attempts to domesticate scientific testimony by legal rules of admissibility has left federal judges with broad screening responsibilities; recent adaptations of adversarialism in the form of court‐appointed experts have been criticized as “inquisitorial,” even “undemocratic.” In exploring their benefits and disadvantages, it would make sense to look to the experience of other legal systems.     

科学与法律领域的真相

审判过程并非仅仅是为了“查明真相”。自从美国的法律系统开始使用科学证人以来，法律领域就面临着混乱的局面。自从Frye规则到Daubert标准再到KumhoTire标准，乃至发展为修改后的《联邦证据规则》702条，尽管法律系统经历了上述诸多努力，人们仍然不会相信法律系统能够从科学信息中获得预期的收益。科学主张和理论或真或假，它们的真或假是一个客观的问题。法律裁决可以断定法律真理为真．也可以断定“所谓的科学真理”为真。只有科学命题所描述的自然界现象和事件的性质——而非有关证据可靠性的法律裁决。也非法庭上的论证和交叉询问——能够证明真的科学命题为真，证明假的科学命题为假。     

真相与正义，探究与辩护，科学与法律

在美国法律文化塑造下的对抗制诉讼制度和科学的调查程序之间存在着紧张关系（tension），在法律所关注的裁决终局性（finality）和科学所追求的持续性纠错（oven—minded fallibilism）之间存在着紧张关系。长期以来，法律界都试图通过可采性法律规则归化科学证言，结果导致联邦法官担负起广泛的审查职责；近期，法庭指定专家的制度实践导致对抗制度做出某些修正，这种制度实践已经被批评为“带有纠问色彩”（inquisitorial），甚至“违背了民主的要求”（undemocratic）。在分析这些制度利弊的过程中，我们有必要考察其他法律系统的经验教训。