Women and the Judiciary in the Asia-Pacific

Melissa Crouch is Professor at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). She is the author of The Constitution of Myanmar (2019) and Law and Religion in Indonesia 2013). Melissa is the Vice-President of the Asian Studies Association of Australia. She was awarded a major grant by the Australian Research Council to study constitutional change in authoritarian regimes. Her book, The Constitution of Myanmar, was shortlisted for the Australian Legal Research Awards 2020.

• Preface; List of abbreviations; 1. The feminisation of the judiciary in the Asia-Pacific Melissa Crouch and Natasha Naidu; 2. To join the bench and be decision-makers: Women judges in Pacific islands judiciaries Anna Dziedzic; 3. Women, adjudication and judging in Sri Lanka Dinesha Samararatne; 4. Women in the judiciary in Thailand Sarah Bishop; 5. The promise and paradox of women judges in the judiciary in Indonesia Melissa Crouch; 6. Filipino women judges and their role in advancing judicial independence in the Philippines Imelda Deinla; 7. One decade of female judges in the Malaysian Shariah judiciary: Promises to keep and miles to go Kerstin Steiner; 8. Examining women in the Nepalese judiciary through the lens of mobility Subas Dhakal, Justice Gauri Dhakal and Justice Sharada Shrestha; 9. Feminising the Indian judiciary: The gender gap and the possibilities of objectivity Simashree Bora; 10. Concluding remarks Ulrike Schultz.

'Moving beyond demographic description, Crouch brings together crucial scholarship on the possibilities for thick feminism when the judiciary gets substantially (and sustainably) feminized. Using accounts across sites, this volume considers the structural conditions that realize and resist women's accession to these positions of power, as well as their complicated individual narratives of success while navigating these conditions. In doing so, it forces us to (re)consider the location of the global south and its actors in legal profession scholarship.' Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen, University of California