Rangita de Silva de Alwis

Prof. Rangita de Silva de Alwis 

Prof. Rangita de Silva de Alwis is a globally renowned international women's Human Rights expert. She is faculty at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Visiting Faculty at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She is also the Distinguished Hillary Rodham Clinton Global Fellow on Gender Equity at Georgetown Institute for Women Peace and Security and Senior Fellow at the Harvard Law School Center for the Legal Profession.  She is a Visiting Fellow both at Mansfield College, Oxford and the Bonavero Institute for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, Oxford University (2024).  She serves as a co-chair along with Baroness Helena Kennedy of the Shaws KC, Cherie Blair KC, and Catherine Amirfar, Partner at Debevoise, on a High-Level Group of Legal Experts on Gender Persecution. She has served in senior advisory roles at the World Bank, the United Nations, multi laterals, governments and academic and NGO programs around the world on the implementation of human rights treaties. She was elected to serve as an expert member on the treaty body to the UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and serves as the focal point on Women, Peace and Security.  She has served as the Special Advisor to the UN SDG Fund, and on many UN and World Bank High Level Working Groups on Women's Access to Justice, Gender Equality Lawmaking and Women with Disabilities. Currently, she serves on the Expert-Group on “Implementation of the Third United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (2018-2027) and wrote the paper on Feminization of Poverty for the Secretary General's Report. Her scholarship on new debates in international women's human rights, comparative legal analysis of gender equality and emerging areas of gender- based violence, including technology- facilitated gender-based violence and critical analysis of Women, Peace and Security have appeared in leading law journals at Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Penn, NYU, Duke, Berkeley, UCLA, Georgetown, Michigan, Oxford and Cambridge. She has been recognized as a "Woman of Inspiration (2015)" by Harvard law School, where she graduated with a doctorate in law (SJD).      

Selected Academic Publications:

  • Holding the Taliban Accountable for Gender Persecution: The Search for New Accountability Paradigms under International Human Rights Law, International Criminal Law and Women, Peace, and Security, German Law Journal 1 (2024). Cambridge University Press

  • Goal Five and Gender Equality, in Commentary on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (Ilias Bantekas & Francesco Seatzu eds., 2023). Oxford University Press

  • Customs, Culture, Courts, and Constitutions: Negotiating the Balance on Gender Equality, University of Penn Law School, Public Law Research Paper No. 24-07 (2024). Georgetown Journal of International law, Volume 56, Issue 1 (forthcoming). 

  • The Evolving Concept of Gender and Intersectional Stereotypes in International Norm Creation: Directions for a New CEDAW General Recommendation, University of Pennsylvania Journal of Law & Public Affairs (forthcoming).

  • The Critical Mass Theory of Women in Leadership: What Next?, University of Pennsylvania Law School, Public Law Research Paper No. 23-40 (2023). 

  • Obstetric Violence and Forced Sterilization: Conceptualizing Gender-Based Institutional Violence, 9 University of Pennsylvania Journal of Law & Public Affairs 1 (2023).

  • A Rapidly Shifting Landscape: Why Digitized Violence is the Newest Category of Gender-Based Violence, SciencesPo Law Review, January 2024

  • Equitable Ecosystem: A Two-Pronged Approach to Equity in Artificial Intelligence, 29 Michigan Technology Law Review 165 (2023) (with Amani Carter & Govind Nagubandi).

  • The Critical Mass Theory of Women in Leadership: What Next?, University of Pennsylvania Law School, Public Law Research Paper No. 23-40 (2023). University of Pennsylvania Journal of Law and Public Affairs 2024 (forthcoming) 

  • Expanding the Women Peace and Security Agenda to Protect Women's Education in Afghanistan and Other Geographies of Conflict, 43 University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law 991 (2022).

  • Addressing Allyship in a Time of a “Thousand Papercuts”, 19 Hastings Race & Poverty Law Journal 63 (2021).

  • Expanding the Women Peace and Security Agenda to Protect Women's Education in Afghanistan and Other Geographies of Conflict, 43 University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law 991 (2022).

  • The Changing Landscape of Women's Rights Activism in China: The Continued Legacy of the Beijing Conference, 28 UCLA Women's Law Journal 7 (2021) (with Katherine Schroeder).

  • "Time Is A-Wasting": Making the Case for CEDAW Ratification by the United States, 60 Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 1 (2021).

  • Reshaping the Narrative on Inclusion: Allyship in a Time of a "Thousand Papercuts", Hastings Race & Poverty Law Journal (2021).

  • Dismantling “Dilemmas of Difference” in the Workplace, 27 Virginia Journal of Social Policy & Law 193 (2020)

  • “Long Past Time”: CEDAW Ratification in the United States, 3 Journal of Law & Public Affairs 16 (2018) (with Amanda M. Martin).

  • Women’s Human Rights and Migration: Sex-Selective Abortion Laws in the United States and India, 19 Asia-Pacific Journal on Human Rights & Law 69 (2018).

  • Women and the Making of the Tunisian Constitution, 35 Berkeley Journal of International Law 90 (2017).

  • The Role of Personal Laws in Creating a “Second Sex”, 48 New York University Journal of International Law & Politics 1085 (2016).

  • Freedom from Violence and the Law: A Global Perspective in Light of the Chinese Domestic Violence Law, 37 University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law 1 (2015-2016).

  • Why Women's Leadership is the Cause of Our Time, 18 UCLA Journal of International Law & Foreign Affairs 87 (2013).

  • Domestic Violence Lawmaking in Asia: Some Innovative Trends in Feminist Lawmaking, 29 UCLA Pacific Basin Law Journal 176 (2012).

  • Examining Gender Stereotypes in New Work/Family Reconciliation Laws Around the World: The Creation of a New Paradigm, 18 Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy 305 (2011).

  • Mining the Intersections: Advancing the Rights of Women and Children with Disabilities within an Interrelated Web of Human Rights, 18 Pacific Rim Law & Policy Journal 293 (2009).

  • Reconceptualizing Human Rights to Challenge Tobacco, 17 Michigan State University Journal of International Law 291 (2008/2009).

  • The Recently Revised Marriage Law of China: The Promise and the Reality, 13 Texas Journal of Women, Gender, & the Law 251 (2004) (with Charles Ogletree).

  • When Gender Differences Become a Trap: The Impact of China's Labor Law on Women, 14 Yale Journal of Law & Feminism 69 (2002) (with Charles Ogletree).

  • Opportunities and Challenges for Gender-Based Legal Reform in China, 5 East Asia Law Review 197 (2010).

  • Selected UN and World Bank Policy Briefs:                          

 download  

  • Havard University Announcement:                                          

 see the LINK

  • American Society of International Law (ASIL) Podcast: 

 see the LINK

Reports, book chapters, policy briefs:

  • Allies in Action: Moving Toward an Intersectional Theory of Allyship (American Bar Association 2023).

  • Redefining Leadership in the Age of SDGs (Harvard Law School Center on the Legal Profession 2022) (with Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka).

  • Afghanistan Under the Taliban: Gender Apartheid? Princeton Policy Brief (2022) (with Naheed Farid).

  • Why Women’s Leadership is the Cause of Our Time, in Gender, Power, Law & Leadership 25 (Hannah Brenner & Renee Knake eds., 2020).

  • Conclusion: Future Trends of Sustainable Development Goal, in Sustainable Development Goals, Goal 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions (Cástor Miguel Díaz Barrado et al. eds., 2017).

  • Book (Edited)  

  • Making Laws, Breaking Silence: Case Studies From The Field (Rangita de Silva de Alwis ed., 2018). 
Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton

“I have been familiar with Rangita’s impressive work for many years. Moreover, her commitment to advancing women’s rights has been recognized globally.”

Martha Minow, Dean of Harvard Law School (2009-2017), a leading legal & Human rights scholar of 21st century

“I know no one with more expertise, tenacity, and devotion when it comes to advancing women’s rights and realizing the promise of CEDAW; a stellar contributor to the efforts to protect against gender-based violence and to make human rights meaningful regardless of an individual’s gender.”

rdesilva@law.upenn.edu
www.rangitadesilva.com