The latest issue of the Journal of Law and Society includes an article about the relationship between colonialism and modern-day French laws against Muslim women’s dress:
“Of Bodies and Burkinis: Institutional Islamophobia, Islamic Dress, and the Colonial Condition” by Brayson Kimberley
Excerpt:
“Shifting legal justifications of gender oppression and national security simultaneously obfuscate and enact a strategy of cultural and colonial assimilation that controls and regulates Islamic bodies in public space. This article takes a different approach to existing literature on gender, race and law by introducing the colonial lens. In so doing, it challenges the current state of ECtHR and French jurisprudence and analyses a rarely-told aspect of contemporary French society.”
Read the article here (open-access).
In addition, the latest issue of SSRN’s Islamic Law & Law of the Muslim World eJournal includes an article (originally published by the University of Iowa College of Law’s Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems) about debates over LGBT rights and international human rights laws at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation:
“The Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s (OIC) Response to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Rights: A Challenge to Equality and Nondiscrimination Under International Law” by Robert C. Blitt
From the abstract:
“After reviewing the OIC’s historical approach to human rights and its ambivalent acceptance of universality, the article focuses on the organization’s contemporary effort to promote the ‘protection of the family’ within the international human rights arena. This campaign — driven by the OIC’s belief that ‘Islamic family values’ are under legal and intellectual assault — champions only those families premised on marriage between a man and a woman. Consequently, families built around lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (‘LGBTI’) and other relationships risk exposure to inequality, discrimination and denial of existing rights under international human rights law.”
Read the article here (free SSRN registration may be required).