Noting how new female subjectivities create the momentum for new
forms of collective action, feminist researchers trace the growth of
transnational women’s networks, the alliances forged between women’s
organizations, governments and inter-governmental actors, and the
development of international legal and policy mechanisms promoting
gender justice. For example, due to these alliances human rights instru-
ments and global declarations increasingly acknowledge the gender-
specificity of human rights (Peters and Wolper 1995; Philapose 1996;
Ackerly and Okin 1999; Ackerly 2000). In 1990, Amnesty International,
the global human rights NGO recognized women’s human rights by
adding gender persecution to its list of forms of political persecution.
Governments and international organizations have followed suit. For
example, until the 1990s Yugoslav conflict, states and international agen-
cies interpreted the persecution of women as a matter of personal privacy
and cultural tradition (Rao 1995). However, as a result of the lobbying of
transnational feminist networks and the widespread media coverage of
rape as a specific war strategy in Yugoslavia, rape is now considered a
war crime under the Geneva Convention Against War Crimes to be
prosecuted by the new ICC (Niarchos 1995; Philapose 1996).