Morgan-Foster II. THE UNIVERSALITY/CULTURAL RELATIVIST QUESTION IN ISLAM Unquestionably, there are many areas of potential tension between Shari'a and international human rights norms. In this section, I outline the areas that .(Western) human rights commentators most commonly raise when the compatibility of Shari'a and human rights is at issue. The largest and mostoften discussed point of contention involves the status of women, 4 who generally cannot hold a political or judicial office, 5 sometimes lack capacity to initiate a marriage contract or obtain a unilateral divorce, 6 and may inherit half as much as an equally situated male. 7 A woman's testimony in court is valued at half that of a man's, 8 and monetary compensation for violent crimes (diya) is less for female victims than for male. 9 According to some interpretations of Shari'a (some of which are state-sanctioned), her husband may chastise her, including "light beating,"'" demand intercourse at any time, and restrict her freedom of movement." The presence of polygamy is also considered a 4. See, e.g., Donna E. Arzt, The Application of International Human Rights Law in Islamic States, 12 HUM. RTS. Q. 202, 208 (1990) (describing the issue of sexual equality as "[pirobably the most celebrated inequality under traditional Islamic law"); Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im, Human Rights in the Muslim World: Socio-Political Conditions and Scriptural Imperatives, A Preliminary Inquiry, 3 HARV. HUM. RTS. J. 13, 36-46 (1990) (noting that "[tihe most important general principle of Shari'a influencing the status and rights of women is the notion of qawama (citing Holy Qur'an 4:34 ("Men have qawama [guardianship and authority] over women because of the advantage they [men] have over them [women]."))); Rebecca J. Cook, Reservations to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, 30 VA.
Last year the International Court of Justice (ICJ) marked its seventieth anniversary, and in the most recent issue of the Leiden Journal of International Law, Hugh Thirlway recognized this milestone with a look back through some key developments at the Court, focusing on the last few years. Here, we would like to undertake a retrospective of another sort, paying tribute to the ongoing connection between the Court and the Journal by taking a brief tour through the Journal's coverage of the Court over the years. It is hoped that this retrospective will not only bring back some fond memories but also – by viewing this material as a whole, and pointing out certain gaps in the Journal’s coverage of the Court's work – stimulate future analyses.
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