Women as Sherpas: Are Global Summits Useful for Women?

International conferences promote masculine agendas and thus are not actually beneficial to women, despite the fact that women do most of the work at these events. An analysis of the ‘soft law’ declarations of the seven global forums organized by the UN since 1990 reveals that the recommendations are either limited or written in unspecific language, thus rendering them ineffective. Women, however, can make these global summits work for women as they do for men by understanding the terms of the recommendations and the commitments made by their own countries and ensuring that their governments honor these commitments.