Isabella Gockel | Australian Foreign Policy
Image sourced from Mark Reldy via Wikimedia Commons.
On the 25th of September 2024, Australia, Canada, Germany and the Netherlands announced that they would take the Taliban to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for gender discrimination. This was a groundbreaking development in the fight for women’s rights in Afghanistan, as countries have never used the ICJ to hold another country accountable for its oppression of women.
Although Australia has certainly made a step in the right direction with this decision, we must do more to protect women’s rights. Our foreign policy must recognise gender apartheid as a crime against humanity and encourage the international community to recognise it as a violation of international law. Australia should also improve its visa pathways for Afghan women so that they can escape the Taliban’s regime and start their life over, free from oppression.
Australia’s response to the Taliban takeover in 2021
The Taliban returned to power in August 2021 after the U.S. and its allies withdrew from Afghanistan, quickly implementing draconian laws that overwhelmingly target women and girls. Girls cannot receive an education beyond the age of 11, while women are banned from public spaces, excluded from most jobs, restrained by male guardianship requirements, and forced to cover themselves at all times in shapeless clothing. Most recently, the Taliban banned the sound of women’s voices in public.
The decision to take the Taliban to the ICJ is the latest measure Australia has pursued in the face of this increasing extremism. They have condemned the Taliban’s violence against women and demanded that they allow both foreign nationals and Afghan citizens with travel authorisations to leave Afghanistan safely. Australia spent AUD$141 million on aid to Afghanistan in the year following Kabul’s fall, and last year pledged AUD$20 million to support people in Afghanistan and those displaced to neighbouring countries.
Future implications of an ICJ ruling
Australia, Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands are taking the Taliban to the ICJ, claiming a violation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). CEDAW, which Afghanistan ratified in 2003, requires men and women to have equal rights with regard to access to education, freedom of movement, choice of work, and freedom of association among other entitlements.
The ICJ, which has the power to settle legal disputes between states, would provide judgements, advisory opinions, and / or orders to all involved. However, the Court is unable to enforce decisions despite judgements being technically binding. Its verdict could also take between weeks to years to be delivered. Relying on the ICJ process alone is thus an insufficient response to the issue.
Despite limitations, ICJ decisions do carry great moral and normative authority. States could refer to the Court’s findings in the future as justification for disciplinary measures against the Taliban, such as targeted sanctions. While the move is therefore commendable, Australia should further promote women’s rights internationally by recognising gender apartheid as a crime against humanity.
How Australia can become a global leader for women’s rights
Australia must recognise gender apartheid as a crime against humanity. Crimes against humanity are different from war crimes and crimes of genocide in that they can occur in peacetime as well as during conflict and can target any civilian population. As a system, apartheid perpetuates crimes against humanity including imprisonment or severe deprivation of physical liberty, enforced disappearance of persons, and persecution of identifiable groups which results in serious harm to their physical or mental health. By recognising gender apartheid as a crime against humanity the same way that racial apartheid has been since 1973, the international community could respond to the Taliban’s crimes similarly to how they responded to racial apartheid in South Africa. Through economic and cultural sanctions, including the withdrawal of large multinational companies from South Africa and its suspension from the United Nations, the international community successfully forced the government to back down.
In the more immediate future, Australia should also improve visa pathways for Afghan women and offer further support to those fleeing the state. The Albanese Government’s AUD$265 million pledge to support displaced refugees and global resettlement efforts, while commendable, only allocated AUD$20 million to Afghanistan’s region, whereas AUD$235 million was allocated to a different region in Asia. Australia should also work with Pakistan to improve Afghan women’s ability to seek asylum internationally. Presently, Pakistan’s Illegal Foreigners Repatriation Plan requires people without a visa for Pakistan to leave or face deportation. This means that those who hold an Australian visa, such as Afghan women refugees, can currently be prevented from travelling to Australia from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
Conclusion
The Taliban has six months to respond before the ICJ will hold a hearing. Australia, however, doesn’t need to wait to promote the rights of women and girls internationally. Allies like Canada are already engaging in multilateral discussions to expand the definition of crimes against humanity and criminalise gender apartheid. Australia also has long-standing ties with Pakistan, and should be able to work with the state to bring about a mutually beneficial solution concerning Afghan refugees and asylum seekers. These are feasible and practical paths of action for Australia.
We have the potential to become a global leader in the fight for women’s rights, and the opportunity to improve the lives of millions of women. The ball is in our court.
Isabella Gockel is the Australian Foreign Policy Fellow for Young Australians in International Affairs. She is a final-year Bachelor of Political Science and Bachelor of International Relations student at the Australian National University, majoring in Human Rights and minoring in French Language and Culture. Isabella is immensely passionate about the intersection of Australian politics, Australian foreign policy, and human rights.
Comentários