Rebecca J. Cook, a professor emerita in Faculty of Law, is being recognized by the American Society of International Law (ASIL) for her edited volume, Frontiers of Gender Equality: Transnational Legal Perspectives (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023).
The ASIL’s Women in International Law Interest Group (WILIG) awards the prize to a scholar whose work significantly contributes to the field of women in international law.
WILIG describes Frontiers of Gender Equality as a substantive volume and valuable addition to the literature on international women’s human rights law. The book illustrates how gender discrimination, including subgroups of women and LGBTQI+ individuals, continues to be normalized and camouflaged, and how it intersects with other axes of subordination, such as indigeneity, religion, and poverty.
The selection Committee unanimously agreed that Frontiers of Gender Equality stood out for its multidisciplinary breadth and depth, significant intellectual contribution, and effectiveness at identifying both challenges and solutions.
Cook founded the International Human Rights Program (IHRP) in 1987 and later, the International Reproductive and Sexual Health Law Program, both based at U of T’s Faculty of Law. She is a member of Order of Canada, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (RSC), and the recipient of the Certificate of Recognition for Outstanding Contribution to Women’s Health by the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO).
“An engaged and dedicated researcher, we congratulate Rebecca on this well-deserved recognition by the American Society of International Law,” says University Professor Jutta Brunnée, Dean of the Faculty of Law and James Marshall Tory Dean’s Chair. “Her pioneering research has influenced the fields of international law, human rights and women’s health, and has helped shape scholarship in the field, as well as the teaching and co-curricular opportunities within our law school.”
Cook will take part in a book discussion, and WILIG will present her with a prize certificate at the ASIL annual meeting in April.
