Women as Sherpas: Are Global Summits Useful for Women?

This article asks how much the global summits on women's issues held over the past four decades have really accomplished for women worldwide. The author answers her own question in the positive, but heavily qualifies this 'yes': although these conventions have adequately articulated women's issues, they have failed to sucessfully challenge the international political order. They have resulted in the inclusion of woman-specific provisions in the final documents, but the author argues that these provisions are too general and limited, failing to create a strong obligation on governments to implement them.