Feminist Foreign and Development Policy in Practice – Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik

Introduction: Feminist Foreign Policy as a Work in Progress

Claudia Zilla

Foundations of the study

In line with the aim of developing a systemic under­standing of the requirements and potentials associated with the conceptualisation and implementation of FFP and FDP, the common starting point for the con­tributions in this study is an inclusive understanding of feminism. This refers to feminist approaches that include queer perspectives and go beyond gender-spe­cific discrimination in order to consider other over­lapping forms of structural disadvantage and oppres­sion of social groups (intersectionality) as well as (post-)colonial asymmetric power relations. The fol­lowing questions will shed light on what this means specifically and which concepts are relevant for this.⁹

The contributions in this study

The publication consists of three parts. In the first, Pauline Reineke and Claudia Zilla examine the core elements of national FFP concepts. They develop tools for synthesising an understanding of FFP and making systematic comparisons. They also identify differences and similarities: Not all governments that profess to be committed to FFP have developed a corresponding strategy. In most cases, their stated claims of being transformative and intersectional lack substantive anchoring; the concepts remain rather reformist and gender-centred.

The four contributions in the second part focus on German policy towards selected countries; two of them use the 3Rs approach, which is only one com­ponent of the FFO guidelines and the BMZ strategy, for their analysis. The different perspectives offered in these contributions reflect the broad conceptual and operational scope of FFP and FDP. Nevertheless, two aspects are common to all country cases: On the one hand, “anti-genderism” – or the severe curtailment of women’s human rights – is part of the government ideology or the social and political realities in these countries; on the other hand, security policy considerations play a central role in Germany’s poli­cies towards these states.

Looking at the states of Eastern Europe, Sabine Fischer shows how Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine promotes traditional, dichotomous gender roles and rearmament. She analyses the connection between war and gender, justifies the need for FFP in the so-called Zeitenwende, and identifies what elements a feminist German policy towards Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia, as well as Russia and Belarus, should contain.

Hürcan Aslı Aksoy analyses the development of the gender regime in Turkey, highlighting both the achieve­ments of feminist and other civil society organisations up to the 2000s and the gender policy backlash that Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government has been push­ing since then. She sees the transactional nature of Germany’s Turkey policy as the main obstacle to the implementation of FFP, but points to various areas where it could still be applied.

Muriel Asseburg’s contribution focuses on the Palestinian territories. She analyses the very limited partici­pation of the local population, not least that of women and marginalised groups. Structurally, the implementation of FFP in the Palestinian territories is hindered by the dominance of (traditionally under­stood) security considerations and the focus on the security of the State of Israel. The author develops starting points for a policy that is oriented towards human rights and human security.

Azadeh Zamirirad analyses German policy towards Iran, particularly in response to the 2022 protests and their suppression by the Iranian security forces, and in light of the country’s nuclear programme. It is true that Germany’s Iran policy is partly based on feminist principles. However, its further development in the sense of FFP requires a change of perspective, away from the Iranian state and towards Iranian society.

The third part of the study is devoted to four policy areas and two international instruments. Bettina Rudloff and Peter-Tobias Stoll focus on gender equality in trade policy. They examine existing trade regimes, distinguishing between rules at the multilateral, plurilateral and bilateral levels, and the more recent unilateral approaches by the EU and Germany. On this basis, they identify opportunities to promote gen­der equality, for example by expanding the evidence base and improving impact assessments. They see the creation of a coherent link between the various approaches as a key recommendation in order for Ger­many and the EU to achieve gender equality.

Martha Stolze analyses digital policy. She develops conceptual requirements for a feminist digital policy, problematises the phenomena of gender-specific digital violence and disinformation, and outlines approaches to combat them. She concludes that Ger­many should advocate for regulations by the state or the expansion of its powers at the EU, UN and bi­lat­eral levels. Concrete recommendations for action are aimed in particular at the negotiations on the Global Digital Compact within the EU.

Nadine Knapp and Anne Koch examine the policy area of migration. Against the background of inter­sectional-feminist approaches to migration research, they focus on intersectional inequality as well as violence and exploitation in the field of labour migra­tion. Central to the elements of FFP and FDP on labour migration that they have developed is a shift away from the logic of domestic politics – that is, a focus on receiving countries – towards the interests of migrants and their countries of origin.

Nadine Biehler and Amrei Meier focus on flight and dis­placement. They analyse the slowly increasing but still weak integration of aspects of intersectional feminism into the refugee regime and develop starting points for a more feminist design of humanitarian aid and development cooperation. They focus on the collection of disaggregated data, the participatory design of decision-making processes, the mitigation of personal asymmetric power relations, and improve­ments in the measurement of progress and success.

The last two chapters deal with international in­struments. Gerrit Kurtz examines the tensions between FFP and stabilisation. He takes a critical look at Ger­many’s use of this instrument and identifies possible contributions of feminist approaches. He identifies the potential for overcoming “purely liberal” peace­building, for the critical analysis of power and secu­rity, for feminist conflict transformation and for promoting reflexive learning processes.

Sanctions are the focus of Judith Vorrath’s analysis. She discusses how sanctions can be used in the con­text of an inclusive and intersectional understanding of FFP with regard to their purpose, goals and effects. She argues that sanctions can be an instrument of FFP, but that they also have potentially problematic aspects. She argues for a policy of protective sanctions aimed at peacebuilding and improving human secu­rity, especially for marginalised groups.

Overarching conclusions

In the respective contributions, a number of recommendations for the design and further development of context-sensitive FFP and FDP in Germany are derived from the analyses of the specific cases. In addition, recurring starting points can be identified and overarching conclusions can be formulated at a higher level of abstraction.

Germany’s feminist foreign policy needs an overarching concept.

Germany’s feminist foreign policy needs an overarching concept that is adopted by cabinet decision. The FFP guidelines of FFO and the FDP strategy of BMZ – as policy-making frameworks for only two ministries – are not sufficient as a foundation for developing an FFP for the Federal Government; at best, individual elements can be implemented on the basis of their merits. However, this does not do justice to the complexity and multi-layered nature of foreign policy, as the range of cases and topics examined here makes clear. In practice, foreign policy is interlinked with domestic policy and touches on the areas of responsibility of various ministries.

FFP has little chance of success if it is limited to a harm-reduction approach, for example as feminist development policy that attempts to compensate for unfair trade policy, or as feminist humanitarian aid that accompanies refugee policy which violates human rights. In order for FFP to have a peacebuilding effect, it must penetrate the central issues of poli­tics. The boundaries of FFP are not marked by security or stabilisation policy, for example, but they are rather areas in which feminist perspectives should shape and thus change analyses, understandings and decisions.

Most states committed to FFP claim to have an inclusive and intersectional approach. However, a closer look reveals a strong focus on gender issues. Even on this narrow path, there is still a long way to go, as the contributions in this study show. FFP can certainly provide an impetus for gender mainstreaming, but it must not be limited to this if it is to help eliminate the power asymmetries that threaten peace.

FFP is not a finished strategy that can be implemented in a clear-cut way. Like democracy, it is a work in progress in concept and practice. Its design remains contextual in the sense that, in many situa­tions, a balance must be struck between different (often conflicting, not only feminist) aims and means. This does not mean arbitrariness or selectivity. A com­mitment to FFP entails a number of requirements, above all the broadening of analytical perspectives, a (power) critical questioning of the categories and criteria being used, and a reassessment of priorities. Within this framework, the authors use specific cases to explore the limits and potentials of German FFP and FDP.

Feminist Foreign Policy: Core Elements in International Comparative Perspective^*

Pauline Reineke and Claudia Zilla

Context of the FFP launch

So far, the governments that have decided to pursue an FFP have tended to be liberal, progressive, social democratic or left-wing. Although in all these cases men were or are at the head of the government, it is mainly women who – as foreign ministers or secre­taries of state – have been entrusted with announcing, developing and implementing FFP or who have actively campaigned for it (e.g. in Chile, Germany, Canada, Colombia, Libya, Mexico, Spain and Sweden).

Governments take different approaches to specifying their FFPs. Chile,² Germany,³ Mexico,⁴ Spain⁵ and Sweden⁶ anchor their FFPs conceptually in publicly available ministerial documents, which are often developed through consultation processes with civil society. Libya, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Colombia on the other hand still have not produced a central document. Meanwhile, some countries use other concepts or strategies as functional equivalents: France sees the core elements of its FFP reflected in its International Strategy for Gender Equality (2018–2022),⁷ and Canada bases its FFP on a number of exist­ing policy-specific documents and initiatives, includ­ing the Feminist International Assistance Policy, adopted in 2017.⁸

The development of an FFP strategy is neither a requirement nor a guarantee for shaping foreign policy in a feminist way. However, setting out basic principles, priorities and objectives in writing can be useful for communicating with national and inter­national actors, managing expectations and creating a basis for accountability mechanisms. Last but not least, it facilitates comparative analysis, which is why the focus below is on FFP variants with a clear textual foundation.

Core elements of governmental FFP

The core elements that can be derived from the dif­ferent FFP strategies vary considerably.⁹ If FFP aims to reduce the asymmetries of power that are unjust and pose a threat to peace, which disadvantaged social groups are at the centre of the policy? If FFP provides a policy framework for governments’ external actions and for processes and structures within ministries, to which policy areas and ministries does it apply? How can priorities be implemented and objectives achieved? And to what extent does each FFP conceptually live up to its rhetoric of transformative structural change?

In search of FFP and its impact

In the public debate on FFP, it is often asked whether its implementation has positive results. Both those who are sceptical or critical of FFP and wish to point to its ineffectiveness as well as those who wish to learn from best practices of other governments with FFP are interested in this issue. But this line of ques­tioning falls short: What is meant by the implemen­tation of FFP, and how is it actually conceived? In the empirical world of politics, FFP brings together a range of concepts, priorities, policy and action areas, target groups, objectives and requirements. These are embedded in the varied contexts of each country. National FFP concepts are feminist, insofar as they discursively incorporate the arguments and demands of feminist theories and movements. These are often condensed within the 3Rs approach, which contains important dimensions but remains limited due to its focus on gender equality and gender mainstreaming. A comprehensive feminist interpretation, vision and transformation of the world and international politics is still lacking, both in FFP concepts and in the actions of governments claiming to pursue an FFP.

Eastern Europe: A Feminist Policy in the Light of War^*

Sabine Fischer

War and gender

Every war has a gender dimension and is also an expression of gendered structures of violence. This is simply due to the fact that the actors, perpetrators, victims and those affected are of different genders. In the vast majority of cases, the political decision-makers and combatants are predominantly men. Women are less involved in combat operations and more exposed to the humanitarian consequences of war. The extreme dichotomisation of gender roles in war also exposes queer people to particular risks.

Anti-feminism and LGBTIQ+ hostility are important components of Russia’s policy of influence and destabilisation.

In Russia’s war against Ukraine, the gender dimension is particularly charged. Russia’s domestic and foreign policy is characterised by aggressive anti-femi­nism and hyper-masculinity.¹ So-called traditional values and extremely pronounced patriarchal struc­tures have become increasingly important legitimising pillars of the political regime.² This can be seen in repressive laws that are explicitly anti-feminist and anti-LGBTIQ+, or in the decriminalisation of domestic violence. Anti-feminism and the cultural war against the allegedly decadent and effeminate homosexual Europe (“Gayropa”) play a central role in Russian poli­tics and propaganda.³ The official narrative of the Putin regime claims that Russia must defend itself against Western “decadence”. Anti-feminism and LGBTIQ+ hostility are important components of Rus­sia’s policy of influence and destabilisation towards its immediate neighbourhood and Europe as a whole.

This policy reached its climax with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which has been the object of Russian chauvinist fantasies about subjugation and rape since 2014.⁴ In the current war of aggression, anti-feminism and aggressive hyper-masculinity per­haps find their most brutal form of expression in the use of sexualised violence as a weapon of war against women and men.⁵

In other states in the region, Russia uses anti-femi­nist and anti-LGBTIQ+ propaganda to undermine societal discourse. The Russian state and private Rus­sian actors support anti-feminist, far-right and reli­gious organisations across Europe.⁶ On the other hand, a feminist anti-war resistance movement (FAS) formed in Russia immediately after the renewed invasion of Ukraine. This loose network of activists organises protests, helps people deported from Ukraine to leave Russia and tries to counteract sexist state propaganda with feminist content.⁷

Patriarchal structures also dominate in other soci­eties in Eastern Europe. The upcoming European Union (EU) accession processes will increase the pres­sure for change with regard to unequal gender rela­tions in Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. In Ukraine, there were already signs of a change in gender roles after the Euromaidan revolution in 2014. Women are playing a much more visible role than before – par­ticularly in civil society, but also in politics – and are more actively involved in defending their country.⁸ Russia’s imperialist aggression also means that people in Ukraine are now more determined than ever to distance themselves from the social model propagated by Russia. Sociological studies and surveys show an increased level of tolerance towards queer people; the idea of masculinity is also changing, at least among the younger generation.⁹ Nevertheless, there is a danger that gender relations in Ukraine will revert to patriarchal patterns as a result of the violent trauma people have been suffering during the war – even if, unlike in Moldova or Georgia, Russian propaganda no longer has much of an impact on Ukrainian society.

Germany’s Eastern European policy and feminism to date

Until the start of Russia’s renewed invasion of Ukraine, feminist perspectives played no role in Germany’s official Eastern European policy. Bilaterally and with­in the framework of the EU’s Eastern Partnership (EaP), it was geared towards supporting the reform processes required for Ukraine’s association with the EU. The focus here was particularly on the fight against corruption; the expansion of the rule of law and democracy; economic reforms; and strengthening human rights. This implicitly included women’s rights, but it did not place them at the centre of atten­tion.

Since 2015, the Federal Foreign Office (FFO) has been funding projects in the areas of pluralism and resilience, value discourses and human rights, as well as dialogue and rapprochement as part of the “Ex­panding cooperation with civil society in the Eastern Partnership countries and Russia (EaP)” programme.¹⁰ Women’s rights and gender equality are not explicitly mentioned in the call text. The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) has long inte­grated gender equality into its working guidelines. For example, the empowerment of women at the local level was a focus of the support provided by GIZ in the 2010s as part of the decentralisation reform in Ukraine.¹¹ Similar approaches are being pursued in other countries in the Eastern Neighbourhood. Of the German political foundations, the Heinrich Böll Foundation in particular took up the issue of gender equality early on and cooperated with feminist and LGBTIQ+ activists in all countries of the Eastern Neighbourhood and in Russia.

So far, feminist perspectives have not been included in Russian state policy. Russian politics is male-dominated; this applies in particular to foreign and security policy. Before 2005, German-Russian rela­tions were characterised by “(old) boys’ networks”, first between the heads of government Helmut Kohl and Boris Yeltsin, then between Gerhard Schröder and Vladimir Putin. Germany’s excessive energy dependence on Russia grew out of the latter “male friendship”.¹² By contrast, the relationship between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian Presi­dent Vladimir Putin was distant and cool. European politicians such as High Representatives of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton (2009–2014) and Federica Mogherini (2014–2019) or Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (since 2019) were and are treated disparagingly by their Russian interlocutors – because they stood and stand for the EU, which is despised by the Russian political elite, and because they are women. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock met Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in January 2022, shortly before the full-scale invasion and the final collapse in rela­tions. This meeting was also chilly and met with deri­sion in the Russian state media and social networks because Baerbock belongs to the Alliance 90/The Greens party, which is hated in Russia, and is a com­paratively young woman. Like many other EU states, Germany has never sent a woman as ambassador to Russia and has thus repeatedly conformed with the misogyny and anti-feminism of the Russian political regime.

The opportunities to shape feminist projects in Russia have steadily decreased over the past decade.

The opportunities for German state and non-state actors to organise feminist projects with Russian part­ners have steadily decreased over the past decade. The Putin regime has cracked down ever harder on femi­nist and queer activism. The state has defamed feminist activists as “foreign agents”, making it more difficult for them to work with non-Russian partners and access vital sources of funding. This development reached its climax with Russia’s renewed invasion of Ukraine. Today, the Putin dictatorship almost com­pletely isolates the Russian population from Europe. The anti-feminism rhetoric has reached new levels. More feminist activists have been declared foreign agents and have had to flee abroad. LGBTIQ+ activism has been considered “extremist” since November 2023 and is banned in its entirety. German non-govern­mental organisations and political foundations can no longer work in Russia. The German embassy has been weakened in terms of staff due to mutual expul­sions and is unable to continue the range of activities it had in previous years.

A feminist Eastern European policy

The ministerial documents on feminist foreign and development policy published by the FFO and the Fed­eral Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Devel­opment (BMZ) in March 2023 offer a good foundation for a feminist Eastern European policy.¹³ Such a policy must take into account the fundamentally changed situation in the entire region. The gender dimension of the war must be fully understood and revealed in order to develop feminist-inspired strat­egies that are tailored to the respective country category: 1) to Ukraine as the country that has to fight for its very existence in the face of Russia’s aggression, 2) to Moldova and Georgia as countries that are striving for EU membership and in geopolitical con­flict with Russia and 3) to Russia as the aggressor, and Belarus taking its side.¹⁴

A feminist Ukraine policy should work in two direc­tions. On the one hand, it should support Ukrainian society in defending itself against Russia’s aggression. In addition to imperialism and nationalism, Russia’s invasion of their neighbouring country also stems from extreme anti-feminism and Russia’s idea of a cultural war against “Gayropa”. This is why military support for Ukraine is also justified from a feminist perspective. The FFP guidelines state: “Russia’s war against Ukraine shows that, in the face of brutal violence, human lives must be protected by military means, too. Thus, feminist foreign policy is not synonymous with pacifism. It is obliged to the humanitarian tradition on which conventional peace policy and arms control draw. At the same time, it recognises the realities of foreign policy and faces up to the dilemmas that arise from them.”¹⁵

Women must have a say if Ukrainian-Russian ceasefire negotiations take place in the future.

Secondly, a feminist Ukraine policy should look beyond state-centric security policy considerations and focus on human security and the situations of women and marginalised groups. In this time of war, it means paying particular attention to the needs of women affected by the humanitarian consequences of the war as well as those of women who have fled abroad. In addition, measures are needed to give more weight to the role of women in national defence and Ukrainian politics. The German government, German international cooperation institutions and civil society organisations should urge their Ukrainian partners to ensure that women are involved in all relevant political and security policy processes. Femi­nist organisations and activists should be specifically supported. Women must have a say if Ukrainian-Rus­sian ceasefire negotiations take place in the future. Not a single woman sat at the table during the nego­tiations that took place in February and March 2022. Ukraine could set an important example here – and Germany should encourage the Ukrainian leadership as well as other European partners to do so.¹⁶

In addition, it is strategically important for femi­nist politics to expand the role and participation of women during the reconstruction and post-war period. Because without gender equality, democratic consolidation will not be possible. Ukrainian society runs the risk of falling into a further spiral of vio­lence due to the trauma suffered, above all by the men who have fought in the war. An effective way to counter this is to ensure that women and other marginalised groups can represent their interests independently: through political empowerment – from the local to the national level – and participation in economic development. It is in these areas that feminist policy can have a transformative effect, in line with the BMZ’s strategy for feminist development policy. To this end, gender-transformative and intersectional approaches must be incorporated right at the programming level.¹⁷ However, there is also a need for contact persons on the Ukrainian side, which in turn brings the expansion of the political participation of women and marginalised groups to the fore. The proliferation of small arms, which is taking place in Ukrainian society as a result of the war, must be reversed in order to protect the state’s monopoly on the use of force. The rapid and efficient reintegration of refugees – mostly women and children – is an­other important aspect. State and social organisations in Ukraine are trying to establish structures for the psychological care of war veterans and war invalids. German and European feminist Ukraine policy should actively support these efforts in the coming years. The situation remains precarious and the task enormous.

FFP towards Moldova and Georgia should focus on strengthening the resilience of both societies against anti-feminism, including when it is promoted by Rus­sian propaganda. This means giving different approaches in policy towards these states a specifically feminist thrust. In the areas of propaganda and dis­information, the Russian “Gayropa” narrative can be countered, for example, by Germany and the EU working together with independent media and using public diplomacy measures to convey realistic images of the EU to the respective societies. The active sup­port of feminist civil society actors is another building block. Finally, the political and economic empowerment of women and marginalised groups should become an integral part of bilateral cooperation and the EU’s conditions regarding upcoming accession processes.

Feminist Russia policy also requires two dimensions. As long as an anti-feminist and chauvinist political regime is in power in Moscow, there is no prospect of security cooperation with Russia. There­fore, containment and deterrence are appropriate political strategies vis-à-vis the Russian state. Follow­ing the renewed invasion of Ukraine, hundreds of thousands of independent actors from civil society, journalism, academia, the arts and the opposition are likely to have left Russia. A feminist Russia policy must focus on promoting feminist approaches in this new exile community and supporting feminist and queer activists with organising themselves in exile. Although Russia’s liberal political opposition con­tinues to be dominated by men and itself shows anti-feminist tendencies, the shock of the war has changed the thinking among civil society actors. Younger activ­ists in particular are now more open to feminism, LGBTIQ+ and decolonisation concepts than before, because they want to distance themselves from the brutality of the Putin regime. This creates a new space of possibility in which feminist politics can operate. It remains to be seen whether and when such a policy can lead to changes in Russia itself. At present, it is one of the few remaining options, given the collapse of political relations with the Putin regime.

Turkey: Opportunities and Obstacles for a Feminist Foreign Policy

Hürcan Aslı Aksoy

Between equality and inequality: The gender regime in Turkey

Article 10 Act No. 5170 (paragraph added in 2004) of the Turkish Constitution of 1982 reads: “Men and women have equal rights. The State has obligation to ensure that this equality exists in practice (added in 2010, Act No. 5982). Measures taken for this purpose shall not be interpreted as contrary to the principle of equality.”³ Despite the legal equality of women, gender relations in Turkey today are characterised by significant inequalities. The reasons behind this lie especially in the socio-political developments that have emerged in the country under the Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has been in power for more than two decades.

In the AKP’s political project “Turkey’s second cen­tury”, gender policy is intertwined with right-wing populist authoritarian rhetoric.⁴ On the one hand, it is about ensuring that male privileges are once again guaranteed under a nationalist-Islamist state ideology and that women “know their place”. On the other hand, gender norms play a key role in the political and cultural polarisation between “us” (AKP supporters) and “the others” (AKP critics).⁵ The main obstacles to gender equality are the repressive policies of the AKP government and the associated promotion of religious traditionalism.

German policy towards Turkey

Germany’s security and economic policy interests in Turkey are undoubtedly diverse. The country’s geo­political location at the crossroads of important regions (Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and the Caucasus), which are constantly exposed to tensions, makes Ankara a relevant NATO ally and a close secu­rity policy partner, especially in matters relating to refugees, migration and counter-terrorism.

As the main destination for refugees from the Middle East, Germany sees itself as being dependent on Turkey and therefore attaches particular impor­tance to bilateral cooperation. In line with the EU-Turkey Statement, it supports Turkey in dealing with refugees in Turkey, which includes some 3.7 million people from Syria.¹⁹ However, the intent of the decla­ration is perceived by the Turkish population as “keeping refugees away from Europe” and has been heavily criticised. Resentment is also increasing among the Turkish population over the presence of Syrian refugees, similar to the growing anti-refugee sentiment in Europe.

Europe has lost its political influence over Turkey.

The EU’s externalisation policies on the refugee issue and the war in Ukraine have led to transactional cooperation with Turkey in recent years. Due to the geopolitical calculations of the West, Germany and other European governments have changed their anti-Turkey policies. The EU’s current goal of avoiding bilateral crises, renegotiating the terms of cooperation with the Turkish government when necessary and passively waiting for change in Turkey is not sustain­able in the long term. Thus, Erdoğan is pursuing a pragmatic and transactional policy towards Europe, engaging on economic, defence and refugee issues, while at the same time distancing Turkey from Euro­pean values such as the rule of law, democracy and fundamental rights. In addition, German and Euro­pean policies are causing frustration among Turkey’s democratically-minded civil society (and population), which plays a subordinate role in bilateral negotiations. As a result, Europe has lost its political influ­ence on Turkey. This transactional policy not only pre­vents the 3Rs from being taken into account in foreign policy, but it also prevents a “feminist reflex” from developing in foreign policy fields of action.²⁰

Possibilities of a feminist foreign policy in cooperation with Turkey

Germany and other European countries committed to FFP emphasise the importance of structural change to advance gender equality, recognising that it is not enough to support women, girls and LGBTIQ+ people individually. The FFP guidelines provide a framework and direction for action within the ministry. In this sense, Germany needs to adopt an approach that focuses on the rights and safety of women, girls and LGBTIQ+ people. As long as the governments of Ger­many and other EU member states do not replace transactional cooperation with principled (including gender-sensitive) cooperation, Germany will be con­tributing towards the consolidation of authoritarian rule and repressive power structures. This contradicts the vision of participation set out in the guidelines.²¹ An FFP towards Turkey should set the following priorities:

The Palestinian Territories: Structural Hurdles and Pragmatic Entry Points for a Feminist Foreign and Development Policy^*

Muriel Asseburg

Limited participation in the Palestinian territories

Women and girls (and other marginalised groups) in the Palestinian territories are severely restricted in terms of legal equality, political, economic and social participation, and access to resources.⁵ In addition, women and girls in areas affected by violence and dis­placement suffer in particular from (physical) insecu­rity. The main obstacles to improving the situation are a conservative, patriarchal Palestinian society, the repressive policies of the two Palestinian governments in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as Israeli occupation policies.

German policy towards the Palestinian territories

To date, German development cooperation in the Pales­tinian territories has largely been subordinated to foreign policy objectives. The declared aim (since the Oslo Accords of the 1990s) has been to work towards a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through diplomacy and development co­operation, or at least to maintain a two-state settle­ment as an option, and to prevent violent destabilisation. Germany’s support for the Palestinian territories is thus also seen as a contribution to Israel’s security. It therefore serves to underpin Germany’s commitment to Israel’s right to exist and security, which former German Chancellor Angela Merkel characterised as “raison d’état”. Gender equality for women and girls, on the other hand, has not been a focus of German development cooperation to date. Still, in the early summer of 2023, the proportion of gender-sen­sitive projects in the Palestinian territories already exceeded the quota targeted in the strategy papers on feminist foreign and development policy. At the same time, only one regional project was classified as gender-transformative.

German policy has prioritised resilience over self-determination.

Against the backdrop of the failure of all previous efforts to settle the conflict; recurring armed clashes with ever-increasing numbers of victims and massive destruction; Israel’s transition to annexing the West Bank; the cementing of the internal Palestinian divide; and the PA’s increasing authoritarianism, German (and European) development cooperation has for some time been unable to work towards sustainable development, a democratic Palestinian entity and a two-state settlement. On the one hand, Germany has been reluctant to make aid to the PA conditional on progress in governance and the establishment of efficient, citizen-oriented institutions. On the other hand, Germany has de facto consistently prioritised Israel’s national security over the human security of Palestinians and tried to shield Israel from legal accountability. As a result, German policy has in effect largely abandoned the aim of conflict transformation and good governance in favour of maintaining the status quo. It has been merely engaged in harm reduction, prioritising the resilience of the Palestinian population over its self-determination and subordinating its political and economic participation to a purported stabilisation.

What is more, in its cooperation with Palestinian non-governmental organisations (NGOs), Germany has supported civil society primarily in its function as a service provider and less as a pluralistic forum for debate that could also inspire its own policies. At the same time, the NGO scene – which is severely re­stricted due to repressive measures on the part of Israel, the PA and the de facto government – has suffered from additional restrictions within the frame­work of German cooperation. Germany’s refusal to cooperate with NGOs that support the BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement, for example, further restricts the space, as even non-violent ap­proaches to advocating for Palestinian self-determi­nation are not considered legitimate¹² – without any viable alternatives being offered. This can hardly be considered to be in line with the “do no harm” principle. And even though representatives of civil society are routinely consulted in the run-up to negotiations between the German and Palestinian governments, those consultations play at best a subordinate role when it comes to shaping the approaches and prior­ities of Germany’s Palestine policy.

Germany’s prioritisation of Israel’s national security became particularly pronounced after the massacres and hostage-takings carried out by Hamas and other militant groups on 7 October 2023. Despite the enor­mous number of civilian casualties, the catastrophic humanitarian situation (caused, among other things, through the far-reaching blockade), and the widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure and homes in Israel’s military campaign in Gaza,¹³ the German government has supported Israel’s use of military force in the Gaza Strip as the exercising of its right to self-defence against Hamas. Although the German government has repeatedly demanded that Israel show more consideration for the civilian popu­lation in the Gaza Strip and allows for better humani­tarian access, it has continued to support and justify Israel’s war aims. For almost six months, it consistently spoke out against a ceasefire, and it has continued to shield Israel from accountability for war crimes and violations of international humanitarian law.

Starting points for a feminist foreign and development policy

An increase in the proportion of gender-sensitive and gender-transformative development cooperation projects will hardly generate new opportunities for participation if the structural hurdles to their reali­sation are not addressed at the same time. In this sense, considerations on how German development cooperation can contribute to reconstruction and sustainable development in the Palestinian territories after the shock of 7 October and the Gaza war should be based on an approach that focuses on human rights and human security for Israelis and Palestinians – which are mutually dependent – and explicitly aims to reduce power imbalances and structural violence. This cannot succeed without a political commitment to a sustainable conflict settlement. As long as this is not the case, German engagement runs the risk of reinforcing patriarchal and repressive power struc­tures. This contradicts not only the formulated vision of participation, but also conflict-sensitive develop­ment cooperation, as envisaged in the German gov­ern­ment’s guidelines.¹⁴ And it runs counter to the historical responsibility that Germany has not only towards the Jews, but also – due to the historical linkages between the Holocaust and the Nakba – towards the Palestinians.

Even if Germany is not prepared to adopt a fundamentally different approach towards Israel and the Palestinian territories, a pragmatic approach to femi­nist foreign and development policy should at least give much greater weight to the WPS agenda than has been the case to date. This applies in particular to the support provided for gender-responsive crisis pre­ven­tion and inclusive peace and decision-making pro­cesses, protection against gender-based violence and needs-based humanitarian aid.¹⁵ In addition, the fol­lowing three starting points would be recommended for expanding the participation of women and girls. In that endeavour, it may be helpful to adapt the terminology to the local context so as not to provoke resistance from conservative population groups.

• German development cooperation should specifi­cally promote girls and women by focusing on increasing the proportion of women in the workforce and formal employment, working towards gender equality in inheritance law and expanding the representation of women in political and eco­nomic decision-making bodies. This requires not only close cooperation with feminist actors and progressive and conservative women’s groups, but also creating social awareness in society at large with the support of male allies.

• German development cooperation should not only view Palestinian (and Israeli) civil society as a ser­vice provider, but also support it in its functions as a watch dog, bridge builder, and forum for pluralistic decision-making and the search for strategies regarding the peaceful pursuit of self-determina­tion (and democracy). This includes continuing to oppose Israel’s criminalisation of parts of civil society by classifying them as terrorist organisations as well as systematically involving Palestinian civil society in consultations on shaping Germany’s Palestine policy – even more so as long as there are no elections that could lead to the creation of representative Palestinian bodies.

• Support for the PA should be linked to improvements in governance, respect for human rights and a gradual return to democratic procedures. In this context, free and fair elections (insofar as possible under occupation) are indispensable.

Iran: The Test Case for Feminist Foreign Policy^*

Azadeh Zamirirad

Reaction of the federal government to the protests

The German government responded to the protests that broke out in 2022 with unusually blunt language and a series of highly symbolic steps. In coordination with European allies, it put together several packages of measures. Based on the global sanctions regime established by the European Union (EU) in 2020, there have been 10 sanctions packages imposed on individ­uals and entities since October 2022 in response to severe human rights violations. They are aimed at members of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guards, leading figures within the morality police, governors of provinces, parliamentarians and members of the cabinet, among others. Sanctions have also been imposed on state media outlets and communications authorities that use spyware against Iranian citizens. As a result, accounts were frozen, entry bans to the EU were issued, and business relations with sanctioned individuals and entities were prohibited.

Due to previous EU human rights sanctions, the provision of equipment that can be used to repress and monitor the Iranian population is already offi­cially banned. At the international level, the German government, together with Iceland, initiated a special session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, which took place in Geneva on 24 November 2022. The participating states strongly condemned the vio­lent crackdown on the protesters and agreed to estab­lish a United Nations mechanism to investigate the human rights violations during the suppression of the protests and to secure evidence. The fact-finding mission was extended in 2024.

In addition to these multilateral steps, the German government pledged to provide spots in protection programmes for particularly vulnerable people and suspended instruments for foreign trade promotion, such as the German-Iranian Energy Dialogue, the for­eign trade fair programme and, since January 2023, formal export credit guarantees as well.

Feminist principles for German foreign policy

In its March guidelines, the Federal Foreign Office lists the measures taken in response to the suppression of the Iranian protests as a practical implementation of Feminist Foreign Policy.⁴ However, it remains unclear to what extent these differ from the non-femi­nist approaches of previous German policy. Although Germany’s current Iran policy is linked to feminist principles in places, it ignores them in key respects.

FFP can be understood as an approach that prioritises peace, gender equality and environmental pro­tection; actively promotes and protects human rights; and aims to eliminate structural inequalities resulting from colonialism, racism and patriarchy.⁵ It is based on a broad understanding of security and attaches great importance to peacebuilding measures, includ­ing in the area of disarmament and non-proliferation. Notwithstanding the great diversity of feminist theo­ries, FFP aims to be inclusive and intersectional.⁶ It calls the state-centric nature of foreign policy ap­proaches into question and encourages the active in­volvement of marginalised groups in foreign policy in processes of decision-making.

If Germany were to follow a feminist approach, a change of perspective would be required, namely one that no longer focuses on the Iranian state but on Iranian society. A feminist Iran policy could follow these four principles: (1) overcoming the traditional concept of “national security” in favour of a people-centred approach, (2) paying attention to and includ­ing marginalised groups in foreign policy decision-making, (3) strengthening social movements and civil society organisations and expanding their capacities and (4) protecting societies from the unintended con­sequences of policy measures, such as sanctions that disproportionally affect oppressed sections of society and weaken their means of resistance.

Giving priority to these principles in German for­eign policy in no way means ignoring the Iranian state or its actions. Clearly naming and condemning human rights violations remains just as important as imposing targeted sanctions on the individuals and entities involved in them. Such sanctions packages help to keep attention focused on the situation on the ground and send a constant signal to Tehran that the human rights situation will remain on the politi­cal agenda, regardless of existing or future security arrange­ments. However, if such sanctions are not accompanied by concrete steps to support civil society actors, they run the risk of turning into mere rituals without political impact. Short-term sanctions must therefore be accompanied by sustainable support mechanisms.

Feminist approach in practice

FFP offers many opportunities to go beyond short-term, symbolic steps in dealing with authoritarian regimes. In practice, any Iran policy should include free technical support to help citizens circumvent internet censorship, the acceleration of visa and asylum procedures, and a committed effort to secure the release of political prisoners, including German citizens who are imprisoned in Iran and used by Tehran as bargaining chips.

FFP focuses on empowering social actors to claim their own rights.

German policy is already addressing these issues to some extent. However, a dedicated FFP would further­more devote political resources towards expanding the capacities of social actors and especially marginalised groups in Iran. FFP focuses not only on the pro­tection of human rights, but also on empowering social actors so they can claim their own rights. It is through these social actors that the transformative goal of feminist approaches⁷ can be put into practice.

One of the biggest obstacles for civil society actors in Iran – who campaign for ecological issues, women’s and minority rights, and the abolition of the death penalty, among many other things⁸ – is the dire economic situation of the general population. This is primarily the result of state mismanagement, wide­spread corruption and the intransparent role played by economic actors such as religious foundations and companies run by the Revolutionary Guards. Broad, sectoral US sanctions imposed as part of the “maximum pressure policy” under the Trump administration – and still largely in place under President Joe Biden – have further exacerbated an already tense situation. In contrast to targeted sanctions against individuals and entities that have been imposed for human rights violations, blanket US sanctions have affected the Iranian population as a whole.

This can be seen in the banking and financial sector, for example, where sanctions are preventing the Iranian diaspora from transferring money to their relatives in the country. Yet, financial support is urgently needed in order to provide legal assistance for prisoners, strengthen civil society organisations, go on strikes or even just manage everyday life. The current economic conditions leave little room for Iranian civil society to develop its capacities and also make it difficult to stage a general strike. So far, Ger­many and the EU have done little to establish reliable financial channels for the Iranian population. Such channels could be set up via European state banks, which would not be readily affected by US secondary sanctions.

Another cornerstone of any feminist approach is the active inclusion of marginalised groups in policy-making. This requires a structured dialogue with the human rights and women’s rights communities in the Iranian diaspora, including ethnic and religious minorities. Many diaspora human rights activists have worked in Iran for decades, often as lawyers defending political prisoners. They are not only familiar with the structures within the country, but also have access to well-established networks in the country. The potential of this community has so far only been used selectively; there is no formalised ex­change with German decision-makers. However, such an exchange would be important in order to test future sanctions for undesirable outcomes that could affect the general population, thus preventing harm. Involving such groups would be one of many ways to do justice to the feminist approach of inclusion in processes of foreign policy decision-making.

In addition, civil society networking in the region should be promoted, both financially and logistically. With regard to the FFO’s feminist foreign policy guide­lines, priority could be given to paving the way for the Iranian women’s rights movement in particu­lar to escape the national isolation that it has been lamenting for years. This can be achieved when Ira­nian women’s right activists have the chance to share their experiences with other women’s rights move­ments in the region and develop joint strategies for social resistance.

A feminist perspective on security

Feminist approaches criticise the conventional con­ception of “national security”, which mainly focuses on issues of border security and state sovereignty. Instead, they put an emphasis on “human security”, including economic integrity, food security and healthcare.⁹ However, feminist research often goes even beyond the concept of human security, provid­ing a view that emphasises the importance of inter­sectionality, gender and power structures.¹⁰ The “feminist security” approach is based on an understanding of security that is not characterised by the mere absence of physical violence or military conflict. Instead, it includes issues such as gender and climate justice and seeks to break down sexist, racist and colonial structures. Structural inequality is therefore seen as a driver of insecurity. This approach suggests expanding the understanding of security in German foreign policy and questioning the country’s own institutional processes with regard to inclusivity and representation.

At the international level, FFP advocates a diplomatic, multilateral and generally anti-militaristic approach to international relations. Protecting human rights and ensuring national security are not mutu­ally exclusive. Contrary to the assumption that sup­porting a feminist uprising in Iran would preclude nuclear negotiations or any kind of security arrangements with Tehran, feminist policies strongly em­phasise the need for non-proliferation and arms con­trol agreements, their importance for international peace and the right of societies to live free from nuclear threat.¹¹

International efforts to find a solution to the nuclear crisis with Iran therefore remain essential. There is an urgent need for a political agreement, both on the technical limitation of nuclear activities in Iran and on monitoring and verification measures. Restoring the International Atomic Energy Agency’s comprehensive supervision of Iran’s nuclear pro­gramme is the most pressing aspect of the current nuclear crisis, which would have far-reaching con­sequences for the entire Middle East in case of an escalation. However, the rapidly advancing nuclear programme is just one of many security challenges, which include Iran’s regional policy – particularly towards the Israeli state – its ballistic missile pro­gramme and Tehran’s drone exports to Russia for use in Moscow’s war against Ukraine.

The German government is therefore faced with difficult trade-offs. In view of the threat posed to Europe’s security by Iran’s nuclear, missile and drone programmes, including the serious humanitarian con­sequences, an intensive political commitment to de-escalation is essential. Against this backdrop, how­ever, questions concerning human rights standards continuously risk being pushed to the backburner. Despite the ongoing nuclear crisis and the potential dangers of Iranian drone technology, Germany and the EU should not focus their political attention solely on these areas. The nuclear issue in particular has overshadowed other political concerns for more than two decades.

This is where feminist approaches have raised con­cerns, criticising that human rights and other rele­vant fields such as environmental and health policies have played subordinate roles in national security considerations, when in fact there are many oppor­tunities to take account of the importance of these sectors for peace and security. As an example, the agreement reached between Iran and Saudi Arabia in March 2023 to restore diplomatic relations and the cautious regional trend towards reconciliation in the Persian Gulf¹² both offer starting points for greater cooperation. In view of the enormous chal­lenges facing the region – even beyond military con­flicts, including water scarcity and air pollution – Ger­many could promote intraregional trade as well as support and promote technical cooperation in the environmental sector by providing its own expertise.

FFP does not offer simple solutions for dealing with autocracies, nor do feminist approaches eliminate political conflicts of interest.

Outlook

Authoritarian regimes pose considerable challenges for German foreign policy, arising both from syste­matic human rights violations and transnational security threats. FFP does not offer simple solutions for dealing with autocracies, nor do feminist ap­proaches eliminate political conflicts of interest. How­ever, feminist concepts provide a new point of view and offer a reassessment of foreign policy priorities. They also encourage a review of foreign policy deci­sion-making processes with regard to inclusivity and representation.

Although the protests in Iran have largely shifted away from the streets to less visible forms, popular resistance continues. However, the formation of a powerful opposition movement in the country will take time. An Iran policy based on feminist principles should prioritise human security and give more atten­tion to marginalised groups that are disproportionately affected by discrimination and repression. This could be done, for example, in international fora such as the United Nations, where intersectional per­spectives are still given minimal consideration in human rights protection and documentation pro­grammes, and marginalised groups are insufficiently represented.

A German feminist Iran policy would only be credible and sustainable if it supplemented measures to contain the nuclear crisis or deal with the Iranian drone programme with substantial support for mar­ginalised actors and could also anchor them regionally beyond Iran. A reassessment of previous German policy in dealing with human rights violations in the Persian Gulf and German arms export policy in this region would thus be unavoidable. Ultimately, there can be no feminist Iran policy without a feminist Gulf policy.

Trade Policy: What Gender Equality Means and What It Could Mean

Bettina Rudloff and Peter-Tobias Stoll

Status: Gender equality in existing trade regimes

Starting points for more gender equality in trade policy

Recommendations for gender equality in (German) trade policy

It would be desirable to encourage other responsible ministries, such as the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection (BMWK) and the Federal Min­istry of Labour and Social Affairs (BMAS), to take up the strategy process now being initiated by the FFO and make their own contributions to it. This would give German policy a greater degree of coherence.

As a substantive priority, the FFO had called for the ratification of ILO Convention 190, the Violence and Harassment Convention of 2019, which was achieved in May 2023.²² Consequently, corresponding refer­ences and, where appropriate, commitments for rati­fication should be included in trade agreements. But there should also be references in unilateral measures such as the GSP in the upcoming reform and in due diligence obligations.

Furthermore, the guidelines mention in particular textile and agricultural supply chains as being espe­cially deficient areas. In this regard, corresponding regulations or unilateral approaches to intersectionality could be emphasised more explicitly in agreements than has been the case to date. Existing pro­visions often go beyond pure gender equality anyway and already take intersectionality into account. For example, the protection of particularly vulnerable groups – such as small-scale producers and indig­enous groups – is at least addressed in many agri­culture-related provisions in trade agreements and the more recent supply chain regulations. This existing intersectionality could therefore be extended to protect human rights as a whole beyond gender-related human rights and labour standards.

Trade policy initiatives for the equitable participation of women must be embedded in other policy areas.

The broadening of trade policies to include non-dedicated trade and economic issues such as sustain­ability, human rights and labour standards is to be welcomed in terms of a value-based foreign policy. But it cannot be overlooked that the instruments of trade policy are restricted in this respect and can therefore only contribute to the comprehensive realisation of these values in a limited manner. Trade policy initiatives for the equitable participation of women must be embedded in other policy areas – such as sustainability, human rights and occupational health and safety policy – if they are to have the desired effect. However, this requires coordination, especially as unilateral or autonomous measures are now being used alongside multilateral and plurilat­eral or bilateral levels of action.

Due to this multitude of new human rights-related, trade-effective approaches in the EU, special efforts must be taken to ensure that they cohere.

Furthermore, a crucial starting point for any im­prove­ment is providing more evidence of gender impacts in business and trade. In order to draw up concrete analyses of individual problems, such as women’s access to financial and other resources, the relevant data must be collected in all areas of the eco­nomic system. Only then can the gender impact of trade policy measures actually be assessed using the impact analyses foreseen for this purpose – something that has largely been neglected to date, includ­ing with regard to human rights issues. For effective implementation, it is even more important than with other sustainability goals in trade regimes that con­cepts on gender equality are adapted to cultural contexts and meet with acceptance by trading part­ners. This will only succeed in the form of partnership-based agreements and implementation – both in relation to the EU and its partner countries as well as to the respective actors involved in trade policy and trade activities. This is all the more true as the in­creas­ing number of unilateral measures being taken by the EU is already fuelling concerns among partners that their sovereignty is being curtailed.

Digital Policy: Approaches Against Gender-Based Digital Violence and Gendered Disinformation

Martha Stolze

Conceptual requirements of feminist digital policy

The principles of FFP and feminist digital policy can inform Germany’s international digital strategy. A shared imperative of feminist theories is a gender-independent protection of human rights as well as the representation and inclusion of women, girls and marginalised groups, including their equal access to resources.¹² Building on this, initiatives such as HateAid, Netzforma* e. V. and the Superrr Lab demand equal access to digital content and accessible soft­ware, as well as protection against gender-based dis­crimination and violence online. In addition, they call for the special recognition of severe online insults, an improvement in protection against digital violence and the mandating of platform cooperation to facilitate criminal prosecution.¹³ Feminist digital policy initiatives also advance an intersectional approach that takes into account the interconnection and mutual reinforcement of various forms of dis­crimination and inequality. They advocate for civil society initiatives to be incorporated to a greater extent, and for women and marginalised groups to be more actively involved in the development and regu­lation of digital technologies.¹⁴ Feminist cyber policy actors focus on human security instead of state secu­rity, and call for a human-centred definition of criti­cal infrastructure and cyber defence. This leads them to call for protecting particularly vulnerable people and their data, for example by securing the digital infrastructure of hospitals, schools and women’s shelters.¹⁵

Digital technologies are not gender‑neutral, but reflect existing asymmetries.

These demands are based on several empirical findings. The term “digital gender gap” (also known as the “gender digital divide”) denotes that women on average have more limited access to digital technol­ogies than men, use them less and rate their own digital skills more modestly.¹⁶ Moreover, instead of being gender-neutral, digital technologies have been found to reflect, and thus reinforce, existing asymmetries. For instance, the Amazon recruitment tool used algorithmic decision-making in application processes. But it proved to be discriminatory, as it was based on the training data of previous applications, which were predominantly from men. Consequently, the algo­rithm favoured male applicants.¹⁷ This is not an isolated phenomenon. White men are disproportionately represented in a large number of data sets (“gender data gap”), which leads to characteristic dis­tortions in the data, including those used to train artificial intelligence (AI) models.¹⁸ The provision of digital services also reveals global asymmetries. For example, 90 per cent of women in Europe have inter­net access, in contrast to a global average of only 65 per cent, which is due to various factors such as patchy network connectivity and high prices for digital services as well as a lack of gender-neutral digital education.¹⁹ In addition, global inequality is inherent in the checking of violent content that has been reported on social media. Reported content is predominantly reviewed in countries in the “Global South” by women on low wages and with modest levels of occupational health and safety²⁰ – illustrating the international dimension of digital policy.

Taken together, feminist digital policy examines these power relations in existing digital technologies, encourages human-centred technological innovations for the benefit of all and looks for ways to shape digital change in an inclusive way.

Gender-related violence and gendered disinformation online

Building on these considerations, two central issues of digital discrimination are discussed below, namely, gendered disinformation and violence online.

Outlook: Shaping international digital policy in a feminist manner

Overall, Germany’s international digital strategy anchors a feminist, human rights-based digital policy more firmly across ministries. It seeks to protect fundamental and human rights online and to bridge the digital gender divide. However, in addition to digital education and internet access for all, more measures to abolish gender-specific discrimination online are required. In particular, the strategy falls short of integrating approaches both against gendered violence and gendered disinformation online.

As a signatory to the “European Declaration on Digital Rights and Principles for the Digital Decade”,³⁸ Germany has committed to ensuring protection against gender-based disinformation and other forms of harmful content, including digital violence. It is time to deliver on this promise. The systematic disparagement of groups based on gender-specific traits should be regarded as illegal content and subject to criminal prosecution – matters the federal government can integrate in its law against digital violence, and advo­cate for both at the EU level and in negotiations for the Global Digital Compact.

Consultations concerning the GDC process have ended and intergovernmental negotiations have com­menced. The German government should use these negotiations to demand inclusive digital spaces. How­ever, as agreements among 193 UN member states typically result in minimum standards, Germany should also work bilaterally to encourage ambitious state regulations that compel digital platforms to uphold their human rights obligations. The following measures can be anchored in the GDC:

1. expanding the accountability of digital platforms and establishing common transparency and security standards, including a rapid, human rights-based response to reported content and comprehensive disclosure obligations, also regarding gender-spe­cific disinformation;

2. supporting international initiatives aimed at pro­tecting against digital violence and assisting affected individuals, exposing gender-specific disinforma­tion and political manipulation, and enhancing media literacy;

3. encouraging diverse participation in the technology sector to mitigate the discriminatory impacts of digital technologies;

4. advancing methodologies for measuring, tracking and combating gender-based digital violence and gendered disinformation, such as increased research funding and publicly accessible “human rights impact assessments”.³⁹

Migration: Intersectional Discrimination in Labour Migration^*

Nadine Knapp and Anne Koch

Intersectional-feminist approaches in migration research

Migration has historically been viewed as a male-dominated phenomenon: Based on a traditional gender order, women were relegated to the domestic sphere and therefore not considered independent initiators of migration processes. However, in the 1970s and early 1980s, an understanding of the inde­pendent agency of female migrants began to emerge.⁴ This brought into focus the complexity of migration movements and the ways in which the mobility of people is restricted or enabled by gender-specific dis­courses, practices and rules. At the same time, migra­tion can alter gender relations within households and communities, impacting gender-specific identities and relationships. Migration can both disrupt and reinforce gender roles. For instance, women who migrate independently may generate the majority of the household income through remittances, disrupting traditional roles. However, migrant women may also be denied the opportunity to learn the language in the destination country and be restricted to the domestic sphere to a greater extent than in their country of origin. From an intersectional perspective, the interactions between gender and other forms of discrimination – such as skin colour, class, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, age, generation, geo­graphical location, legal status and nationality – are increasingly being examined to better understand the realities of migrants’ lives.⁵

Intersectional-feminist approaches have hardly been considered in the mainstream of broader migration research.

However, these intersectional-feminist approaches have yet to be widely adopted in the mainstream of broader migration research.⁶ Existing gender and power relations and their effects on migration are still rarely the subject of analysis; instead, gender is usually understood as a biological gender category and as a demographic, binary variable.⁷

In recent years, research on critical migration and border regimes has provided important impetus for an intersectional-feminist view of migration processes. With its power-critical analysis of relations of domi­nation and violence in the context of human mobil­ity, it questions established assumptions about state­hood, borders and the agency of migrants.⁸

The notion of methodological nationalism, for example, criticises that classical migration research regards the nation-state as a quasi-natural, homogeneous unit or “closed container”, and that it accepts associated concepts such as national borders, citizen­ship and national culture without question.⁹ As a result, new arrivals are primarily perceived as a devia­tion from the norm and a security risk, or as a burden on national labour markets and social systems.¹⁰

Critical migration and border research views bor­ders not as fixed lines or obstacles, but as a complex system of “limitation, differentiation, hierarchisation and partial inclusion”¹¹ that allows for the categorisation of different migrants and distinctions between “legal/regular” and “illegal/irregular” or “good” and “bad” newcomers. This makes visible the fact that, in addition to enabling or preventing mobility, border practices involve a process in which rights, participation and belonging are recognised and denied by degree.¹² In critical migration research, migrants are not reduced to passive objects, but are included in the analysis of border and migration regimes as inde­pendently acting political subjects. Such an understanding of migrants as agents of change is a prerequi­site for developing and implementing effective forms of representation and political participation.

Building on these considerations, the following section uses the example of labour migration to demonstrate the consequences of overlapping forms of discrimination and the potential fields of action available to a feminist-oriented migration policy that pursues an emancipatory and power-critical claim in line with FDP and FFP.

Intersectional inequality, violence and ex­ploitation in the field of labour migration

In contrast to displacement or migration for educational or family reasons, labour migration encompasses all cross-border migration that is undertaken – whether legally or irregularly – primarily for the purpose of gainful employment. This type of migra­tion is often due to the persistent economic imbal­ances between wealthy industrialised countries and those of the so-called Global South.

Structural power imbalances manifest in labour migration.

In industrial countries – especially those with age­ing populations due to demographic shifts – there is a continual demand for migrant workers with varying levels of qualification. At the same time, labour migra­tion is plagued by structural power imbalances that result in gender-specific and intersectional discrimi­nation. For instance, highly qualified workers usually have access to legal immigration channels; this is often not the case for less-qualified people, despite their labour being also in demand. In addition, there is both anecdotal¹³ and quantitative evidence¹⁴ that visas granted by wealthy countries, such as Germany, are often influenced by racist prejudices, leading to systematic discrimination against people from sub-Saharan Africa.

Due to these structural power imbalances and limited legal immigration options, a substantial pro­portion of labour migration is irregular. The informal employment relationships often associated with this status exacerbate inequality and discrimination because informal workers are denied rights. In the low-wage sector in particular, however, even for­malised employment relationships do not protect against exploitation: This applies, for example, when migrant seasonal workers in asparagus, strawberry and vegetable cultivation have to accept high wage deductions for accommodations and inadequate (health) insurance.¹⁵ Similarly, non-state intermedi­aries frequently require unethically high placement fees from migrant care workers.¹⁶ Overall, migrant workers are overrepresented in employment arrange­ments for what are commonly referred to as “3D jobs” in English-speaking countries due to their unattractive and often risky nature (“dirty, dangerous and diffi­cult”).¹⁷ This applies to jobs in construction, cater­ing, agriculture, the cleaning sector, care, childcare and other household-related services in particular.

Against this backdrop of structural disadvantages, especially for low-skilled workers, labour migration is also characterised by gender-specific burdens and risks that have consequences not only for the migrants themselves, but also for their families and communi­ties in the country of origin. On the one hand, private household work, such as childcare or domestic care, which is mostly carried out by migrant women, is largely outside the control of the state and particularly susceptible to exploitation. At the extreme, this can take the form of modern slavery, which, although not limited to professions that are commonly associated with a female workforce, is most frequently found in the context of human trafficking for the purpose of forced prostitution.¹⁸ On the other hand, employment opportunities are not only determined by the labour market in the destination country, but also by the con­ditions in the home country. For example, if women face difficulties in accessing education, men may have an advantage in the competition for limited work visas. In other cases, traditional cultural roles have a greater impact on the employment prospects of female migrant workers than their human capital characteristics.¹⁹

Empirical research on migrants’ remittances to rela­tives or other caregivers in their countries of origin, which can have an important development impact, shows that these are also characterised by gender-specific dynamics. On average, women send a larger proportion of their income home than men, and they do so more regularly and in smaller amounts. Among other things, this means that they are dis­proportionately burdened by transfer fees. In addition to gender-specific differences, occupation, social class, level of education and monthly per capita expenditure also determine remittance behaviour.²⁰

Changes in gender roles in recent decades have led to an increase in female employment in many wealthy countries, creating a strong demand for female care and domestic workers.²¹ As a result, migrant women from poorer countries are meeting the demand for care work in wealthier countries, but they are no longer able to fulfil their own care obligations. This sometimes results in so-called global care chains. In other instances, a care gap persists in the migrant worker’s country of origin, and children or elderly people are left without support.²² The lack of social appreciation of female domestic or care work also means that these activities are usually poorly paid. Particularly in the context of large refugee move­ments, migrants who have completed vocational training often replace the unpaid work previously carried out by local women due to a lack of other income opportunities. If this situation persists, it can lead to a development-inhibiting process of deskilling for the people concerned.²³

Elements of a feminist foreign and development policy

An FFP and FDP that aim to reduce the structural dis­advantages and intersectional discrimination outlined above in the context of migration must first adopt a perspective that is critical of engrained power hierar­chies before questioning the state-centred orientation of existing migration policies. This entails a recognition that the privileges associated with citizenship in wealthy industrialised countries constitute a legal construct, and that upholding them does not justify human rights violations and structural discrimination against less-privileged people. Instead, actions in this field should aim to reduce intersectional inequalities and promote social participation.

The inclusion of development and foreign policy criteria is particularly relevant for the recruitment of foreign workers.

In practical terms, this means taking into account the demand for low-skilled workers when assessing current and future labour market needs, and calling into question the rationale that labour migration should be regulated with the sole aim of addressing the economic needs of the receiving countries. The inclusion of development and foreign policy criteria is particularly relevant for the recruitment of foreign workers: The German government should consider the interests of partner countries and potential migrants more systematically than in the past and work to ensure that existing normative standards for fair recruitment are adhered to and developed further.²⁴ This includes precautions against brain drain – par­ticularly in the health and care sectors in countries of origin – and measures to protect migrants from exploitative working conditions or long-term finan­cial dependency on private recruitment agencies. Reducing remittance fees can not only have a positive impact on the development of the country of origin, but it can also make an important contribution towards reducing gender-specific inequalities. All these efforts should be accompanied by a commitment to the adequate representation of migrant orga­nisations in relevant international fora, for example in the implementation of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration.

The newly established BMZ Centres for Migration and Development, which are dedicated to promoting fair and ethical labour migration to Germany and Europe, create further opportunities. Here, advisory services for women and other marginalised groups ought to be expanded, providing information on opportunities, rights and problems in destination countries or imparting financial literacy. In this con­text, it would be useful to work with transnational trade union associations to expose and gradually dis­mantle discriminatory structures. In order to reduce global inequality, the criterion of climate justice should also be taken into account when selecting partner countries for the recruitment of workers. In line with FFP and FDP, the FFO and BMZ could work to ensure that people from regions in which large climate-related refugee movements are to be expected are given preferential access to legal labour migration in the future, in line with the concept of migration as adaptation.

However, it will not be possible to implement femi­nist approaches to (labour) migration using foreign and development policy instruments alone. Instead, a coherent whole-of-government approach is needed that encompasses the realm of interior policy: The exploitation of migrant workers can only be prevented if existing discriminatory structures in destination countries such as Germany are reformed – including through appropriate remuneration for care work and the regulation of domestic care. This requires finan­cial resources as well as an expansion of the rights of those affected, enabling them to represent their inter­ests collectively. In terms of migration and integration policy, this requires regularisation programmes, an accelerated continuation of temporary residence permits and the removal of structural barriers, par­ticularly with regard to language skills and the recog­nition of qualifications. The revised Nationality Act, which simplifies the path to German citizenship, and the new Skilled Immigration Act, which aims to facili­tate the immigration of workers from third countries, are steps in the right direction. However, the need for low-skilled workers from abroad continues to be ignored in the public debate; the same applies to gender-specific discrepancies in the employment of immigrants, which are not systematically addressed by the promotion of gender-equitable working con­ditions alone.

Forced Displacement: Prerequisites for a More Feminist Approach to Humanitarian Aid and Development Cooperation^*

Nadine Biehler and Amrei Meier

Feminism and the global refugee regime

For most states, the international refugee regime set out in the 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol provides the binding framework for dealing with forced displacement. Intersectional femi­nism, which goes beyond discrimination based on gender and sexual identity, does not play a central role. The Refugee Convention does not even refer to disadvantages and discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation as possible grounds for protection. Gender-based violence is also not mentioned as a basis for fear of persecution.⁵ Only legal practice has changed over the decades: In the 1980s, for example, people persecuted because of their sexual orientation were recognised as refugees.⁶ Since 1993, gender-based violence has also been recognised as a criterion for refugee status.⁷

The consultations to draft the 2016 “New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants” and the 2018 Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) have come closer to reflecting a feminist process design, which aims to be dialogue-based, transparent and non-hierarchical⁸ through the participation of women’s groups, civil society and UN agencies (such as UN WOMEN).⁹ How­ever, the concrete commitments that emerged from this remained largely rooted in a binary understand­ing of gender. The New York Declaration, among other things, includes access to sexual and reproductive health services; combating of sexualised and gender-based violence; and the promotion of gender equality;¹⁰ while the GCR includes the individual registration and issuance of (refugee) papers for women and girls, regardless of their marital status.¹¹

In terms of practical support for refugees, however, these conceptual advances have gone largely unnoticed. According to a 2020 audit report, 85 per cent of pledges made to the Global Refugee Forum – which serves as a review mechanism for the GCR – made no reference to gender issues or gender equality.¹² Despite increasingly progressive legal practices, pro­cesses and language from a feminist perspective, im­plementation is lagging. This means that the impact on affected refugees will be limited.

Humanitarian aid and development cooperation

Similar implementation challenges are faced by the FFO and BMZ – whose humanitarian aid and devel­opment cooperation are directed towards people in situations of forced displacement in the so-called Global South. Forced displacement is mentioned in both policy documents, but it does not play a central role. Whereas the FFP guidelines emphasise that cli­mate-induced displacement affects women and mem­bers of marginalised groups in a particular way,¹³ the FDP strategy mentions displacement contexts more frequently. However, it only explicitly states the inten­tion of supporting the establishment of social systems in these contexts, facilitating women’s access to formal financial systems and promoting their equal participation in peace processes.¹⁴ By promoting gen­der equality or gender mainstreaming in their dis­placement-related activities, both ministries are already taking into account the fact that, although men and women are displaced in roughly equal proportions,¹⁵ they suffer from different effects. Fac­tors such as gender-based violence throughout the entire forced displacement cycle and restrictions on women’s and girls’ access to protection play a role here. In practice, the intended improvements for those affected often fall short of what is required.

Overall, the humanitarian and development policy challenges in the area of forced displacement are enormous; in the view of FFP and FDP, feminist, inter­sectional and post-colonial¹⁶ perspectives need to be taken into account to bring about substantial positive change.¹⁷ In order to achieve this, a number of smaller reforms can help the FFO and BMZ to ensure a more equitable design of forced displacement-related humanitarian aid and development cooperation: collecting disaggregated data, organising decision-mak­ing processes in a participatory manner, reduc­ing power asymmetries among staff and improving the measurement of progress and success.

Outlook

FFP and FDP are transformative in the sense that they aim to challenge and overcome existing unequal and discriminatory power structures. In the area of forced displacement, politics and policy are especially far removed from intersectional-feminist, post-colonial, anti-racist and power-critical demands. This is because German and European asylum and migration legis­lation is based on the fundamental power asymmetry between (often racialised) people seeking protection and their destination countries, which is partly due to colonialism. Humanitarian aid and development cooperation – regardless of whether they are femi­nist or not – can only provide limited relief here. What is needed instead is a feminist whole-of-govern­ment approach that transcends the departmental boundaries between domestic, foreign and development policies, puts people at the centre, and ensures that protection is given the highest priority – some­thing that cannot be expected given the current political discourse.

In the absence of this, the strategies presented by the FFO and BMZ can only help to shape their main instruments for displacement situations – humani­tarian aid and development cooperation – in such a way that they come closer to the demands of FFP and FDP. To achieve this, it is not enough to give a greater voice to women or other marginalised groups, such as refugees and internally displaced persons. Rather, the aid systems themselves need to be fundamentally rethought in a power-critical way and, as has long been demanded, better interlinked than in the past.

Stabilisation: Rethinking Pragmatic Conflict Management in Fragile Contexts with a Feminist Foreign Policy Lens

Gerrit Kurtz

The status quo in German stabilisation policy

Since 2017, Germany has been the world’s largest donor country in the field of civil conflict transforma­tion.⁵ In 2024, the Federal Foreign Office (FFO) had €400 million at its disposal for the three pillars of its integrated peace engagement: crisis prevention, sta­bi­lisation and peacebuilding.⁶ Other departments, in particular the Federal Ministry for Economic Coopera­tion and Development (BMZ), also support projects that serve stabilisation in fragile contexts in a broader sense. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the Federal Government’s somewhat broader global expenditure on “civilian peacebuilding, conflict prevention and resolution” totalled US$960 million (around €875 mil­lion) in the last reporting year of 2022.⁷

Only the FFO uses the term “stabilisation” in the German context. It understands it as a contribution to “support political processes to contain violence, strengthen legitimate governance structures and facilitate initial steps towards reconciliation between conflict parties”.⁸ Stabilisation includes a range of instruments such as strengthening state institutions; security sector reform (SSR); disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) programmes; rule of law; and peace mediation.⁹ Important partner coun­tries and regions that the FFO repeatedly mentions are Ukraine, the Lake Chad region and north-eastern Syria. The German government often works together with other donors and international organisations, for example within the framework of the stabilisation facilities of the United Nations Development Pro­gramme.

Gender issues have long played a role in German peace work.

Gender issues have long played a role in German peace work. The National Action Plan for the imple­mentation of the “Women, Peace and Security” agenda is an expression of this.¹⁰ In its guidelines on FFP, the Federal Foreign Office mentions stabilisation in the second guideline: “We systematically include women and marginalised groups in crisis Prevention, stabilisation and peacebuilding measures and take into account gender-specific risks. We want to achieve progress towards more gender-equitable societies and design our international crisis management to be gen­der transformative.”¹¹

Specifically, the FFO primarily mentions projects to expand the rights, resources and representation of women (e.g. the training and deployment of “gender experts” by the Center for International Peace Opera­tions (ZIF)).¹² In its efforts to improve the position of women and marginalised groups, the FFO thus con­tinues to operate within the existing system of con­flict resolution without fundamentally questioning its own approaches. However, the impact of experts trained in gender transformation remains limited if there is a lack of political will to embed the resulting viewpoints and perspectives within a more compre­hensive strategy.

Although both the FFP guidelines and the stabilisation concept of the FFO contain feminist principles that go beyond the 3Rs (rights, representation and resources), their practical significance is also some­times limited. One example: The stabilisation concept aims to use “gender-sensitive conflict analyses” to “help identify new approaches, scope for action and actors”. However, “conflicting goals” exist, especially where “male-dominated power players” need to be involved. Here, the FFO intends to present its prin­cipled position and “systematically weigh up short-term goals (e.g. a ceasefire) with medium- to long-term goals of societal transformation”.¹³ This state­ment could suggest that gender justice is a medium- to long-term task that stands in contrast to other stabilisation goals. However, the quoted paragraph also shows that the FFO explicitly acknowledges tensions between the goals of stabilisation and FFP, and that it at least makes an attempt to systematise its approach in critical situations. This is a step for­ward compared to earlier government documents, in which normative goals were given equal status and trade-offs were simply mentioned in abstract terms without specifying solutions.

In terms of resources made available for gender equality, German expenditure has fluctuated greatly in recent years. In the last reporting year of 2022, 50 per cent of official development assistance funds¹⁴ for civil conflict transformation were used for projects that pursue gender equality as a significant objective (score 1 of the OECD Development Assistance Com­mittee) and 2.8 per cent for those with gender equali­ty as the principal objective (score 2). By 2025, the FFO would like to achieve a funding level of 85 and 8 per cent, respectively, for these categories.¹⁵ Contrary to the corresponding equation of these indicators in the FFO guidelines, they are not congruent with the objec­tives of a gender-sensitive or gender-transforma­tive design. For example, a project can be aimed at women as the main target group (score 2) without questioning gender relations per se.

Some power-critical approaches of feminist research can be particularly beneficial for stabilisation projects.

Possible contributions of feminist foreign policy

A critically defined FFP can contribute to making stabilisation measures more effective, more resilient and more inclusive than before. It offers points of reference, assumptions, concepts and approaches that are already being discussed among stabilisation experts in order to examine previous practices in more detail and, in some cases, to find new answers. Some power-critical approaches of feminist research can be particularly beneficial for stabilisation projects.

Conclusion

FFP helps to make stabilisation better, fairer and more context-sensitive by questioning traditional assumptions in the overall approach, analysis, processes, project design and impact assessment. In particular, it can provide a fresh approach, especially in contexts where it goes beyond the promotion of gender equali­ty. With its FFP guidelines, the FFO still falls short in fully embracing the possibilities of a feminist ap­proach. Feminist analyses reveal the unequal, often conflict-driven power structures that arise due to a lack of gender equality, but also the biased gender roles and mechanisms of exclusion along with other differentiating characteristics.

The further development and implementation of feminist efforts towards stabilisation is not just about normative human rights issues. Instead, the inclusion of feminist perspectives can also contribute to the pragmatic claim of stabilisation in fragile contexts³⁴ – when it comes to placing empathy instead of arro­gance at the centre of conflict management, for example.

It is in the nature of stabilisation to focus on the status quo because situations are almost impossible to change in the short term and restoring order is the priority. Diplomats also act according to this logic, which is an expression of an intergovernmental sys­tem that often finds it difficult to build sustainable partnerships in fragile contexts that extend beyond national governments that are often detached from their populations. Implementing aspects of feminist foreign and development policy that are critical of power is therefore no easy task. However, feminist arguments can encourage ongoing processes of reflec­tion in the direction of stabilisation that is aimed at improving the relationship between the population and the government.

Sanctions: Requirements and Starting Points for a Protective Sanctions Policy^*

Judith Vorrath

Sender of sanctions: Legitimacy and representation

The first relevant question for assessing sanctions from the perspective of an FFP is who imposes them. In principle, multilateral channels are preferable to unilateral ones, as the involvement of several states gives sanctions a broader scope and potentially a higher degree of legitimacy. For German foreign policy, the UN and the EU are the relevant frameworks for action. Unlike the United States or the United King­dom, for example, Germany does not generally use this means of coercion unilaterally. Autonomous EU sanctions bind all member states through joint deci­sion-making; non-EU members or other actors have at most indirect and selective influence on the respect­tive decision-making process. Yet, unlike the African Union, for example, which mostly sanctions its own members, the EU’s “restrictive measures” – as they are officially called – are aimed at external targets.

In fact, autonomous sanctions are also referred to in EU documents as being subsidiary to UN sanc­tions.⁶ The latter are based on resolutions of the UN Security Council, and thus binding for all UN member states. Although all regions of the world are represented by states on the Security Council, there is a clear imbalance of power due to the dominance of the five permanent members (United States, United Kingdom, France, China and Russia) and their right of veto. However, if an agreement is reached on a UN sanctions regime, the relevant sanctions committees, as subsidiary bodies of the Security Council,⁷ work under the principle of consensus. Elected members can therefore also prevent decisions – for example on the designation of certain persons and entities.⁸ Of course, this does not change the fact that certain social perspectives and groups are hardly represented among the member states at the table.

The UN sanctions system has been made fairer and more transparent overall since the 1990s.

Nonetheless, various reforms have made the UN sanctions system overall fairer and more transparent since the 1990s. Among other things, “panels of experts” have been introduced to support the relevant sanc­tions committee in monitoring the implementation of measures. Today, almost all UN sanctions regimes include such a panel of experts, which on the one hand ensures that monitoring is as independent and systematic as possible; on the other hand, it is com­monly part of the group’s mandate to collect and analyse information not only from states, but also from international and regional organisations and non-state actors. This means that the positions and insights of different groups are incorporated into the process, provided the experts can gain access to them.

However, gender aspects were only taken into account relatively late in the UN system. A workshop funded by the Canadian government in Nairobi in 2019 came to the conclusion that the world of sanc­tions is largely male-dominated.⁹ Women were sig­nificantly underrepresented in the composition of UN panels, with a share of less than 30 per cent. In addition, they were not only repeatedly subjected to sexual harassment in the groups, their work was also devalued, especially as human rights and gender issues were often considered marginal topics.¹⁰ Con­crete steps for a greater consideration of gender-related threats and violence as well as an adequate level of participation by women in UN sanctions policy and its implementation were outlined, but the need for a cultural change was also emphasised. In a “Best Prac­tices Guide for the Chairs and Members of United Nations Sanctions Committees”, which was supported by Germany and others, gender competence and bal­ance continue to be identified as areas that urgently require more attention.¹¹ Apart from further neces­sary reforms, the question arises as to what happens if the path to UN sanctions is blocked, for example due to impasses in the UN Security Council. The extent to which autonomous EU sanctions are then a legitimate means, from FFP’s perspective, partly depends on the assessment of the second relevant aspect of sanctions: their objective.

Objectives of sanctions: Between state and human security

In principle, UN sanctions are aimed at maintaining or restoring peace and international security.¹² From an FFP’s perspective, it is particularly important to clarify which and whose security is concretely being addressed. In fact, the objectives of sanctions have been increasingly expanded – from their original focus on cross-border aggression to include the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, com­bating terrorism, the resolution of internal armed conflict, the protection of human rights and governance aspects.

The design of the sanctions regimes has also evolved significantly. In 2008, a criterion was added for the inclusion of individuals on the sanctions list concerning the Democratic Republic of the Congo: It refers to “the targeting of children or women in situations of armed conflict, including killing and maiming, sexual violence, abduction and forced dis­placement”.¹³ Today, there are similar listing criteria in eight¹⁴ – and thus the majority of – conflict-related UN sanctions regimes, most of which focus on the planning, management and implementation of sexual and gender-based violence in the context of armed conflict.¹⁵ This has direct consequences for the monitoring process, as the panels report on this type of violence accordingly. Together with the UN Secre­tary-General’s reports on conflict-related sexual vio­lence that were first published in 2012¹⁶ and the work of the UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, this has improved the information base and raised awareness. But there are also other criteria of today’s sanctions regimes that reflect an expanded understanding of peace and security. In conflict-related regimes, for example, human rights violations and breaches of international humanitarian law, the obstruction of humanitarian aid, or the recruitment and exploitation of children can be sanctioned.

Yet, a closer look reveals that attempts to move towards a broader understanding of security remain controversial in the UN Security Council. In fact, more than ten years ago, a split in the body had already become visible on issues such as women, peace and security as well as the protection of civilians¹⁷ – and this fissure has clearly deepened since then. Thus, the aforementioned criteria are rarely and inconsistently applied. By the end of March 2021, for example, only 28 out of the 720 listings of 9 sanctions regimes referred to sexualised and gender-based violence or human trafficking.¹⁸ Some members of the Security Council, particularly China and Russia, generally insist on narrow interpretations of threats to peace and security. Such reservations tend to be combined with a fundamental scepticism towards sanctions, which are seen as interference in internal affairs and – particularly by some elected members of the Security Council – as an expression of Western dominance. In addition, there are conflicting objectives and bu­reaucratic obstacles in the UN sanctions system.¹⁹

At the EU level there is a greater level of – albeit not unlimited – agreement when it comes to pro­moting or defending democracy, the rule of law and human rights by using sanctions. In principle, the objectives of EU sanctions²⁰ are similarly set and dis­tributed to those of UN sanctions, albeit with a stronger emphasis on governance and conflict reso­lution.²¹ The country-specific regimes and the global human rights regime in particular offer starting points for an FFP. Unlike the regime on cyberattacks, for example, where the focus is primarily on pro­tect­ing the EU, its member states and its citizens, such sanctions are intended to contribute towards improv­ing human security in other world regions.

It is particularly important that EU sanctions be part of a political process that is inclusive and clearly focused on specific objectives.

As already mentioned, the process of imposing and/or implementing restrictive measures ultimately is in the hands of the EU member states. Therefore, different motives come into play when decisions are taken, which can lead to selective application, among other things. It is therefore particularly important that EU sanctions be part of a political process that is inclusive in various respects and clearly focused on specific objectives. Furthermore, the impact of sanc­tions must be considered if they are to be used as an instrument of FFP.

Effect of sanctions: More harm than good?

The negative consequences that comprehensive eco­nomic sanctions, such as those against Iraq and Haiti in the 1990s, have had for civilian populations – especially women and children – have given rise to widespread criticism.²² In fact, there is clear evidence that the UN sanctions against Iraq, for example, hit women and girls especially hard, partly because the task of ensuring the survival of their families fell predominantly on them.²³ The reforms towards more targeted sanctions ultimately have led to most UN sanctions regimes today containing a combination of arms embargoes, travel bans and freezing of assets, sometimes supplemented by further sanctions such as export or import bans on certain goods. In some contexts, the latter have been applied so broadly that they were or are in fact comprehensive, for example in the case of North Korea.²⁴

Accordingly, in addition to diplomatic sanctions, targeted financial sanctions against individuals and institutions, such as the freezing of assets, appear to be preferable from the point of view of FFP.²⁵ How­ever, these also have problematic side effects if the financial sector and humanitarian organisations restrict their activities in relation to certain countries or actors – for fear of violating sanctions or incurring excessive compliance costs. As a result, some coun­tries are almost completely cut off from the global financial system, which hinders poverty reduction and economic growth. In turn, vulnerable population groups such as women, children, the elderly and refugees suffer the most.²⁶

Against this backdrop, the UN Security Council issued a standing humanitarian exemption for finan­cial sanctions in December 2022.²⁷ An ongoing multi-stakeholder process aims to minimise the overall nega­tive humanitarian consequences of sanctions, for example through a “code of conduct”.²⁸ When it comes to sanctions outside the UN system, however, the debate has become charged at times. In the area of human rights, for example, the work of the “Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral co­ercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights” in affected countries²⁹ has been met with criticism. For example, there are calls from Iranian civil society to hold authoritarian governments accountable for human rights violations.³⁰

Ultimately, sanctions serving as an instrument of FFP must be assessed in light of their benefits for objectives such as human rights protection.

Ultimately, sanctions serving as an instrument of FFP must be assessed in light of their benefits for objectives such as human rights protection, as it can never be completely ruled out that they will have effects beyond the target persons and their immediate environment. The exact effectiveness of measures is difficult to assess – especially as the purposes of sanc­tions are diverse and cannot be reduced to chang­ing the behaviour of target persons or groups. The focus therefore has to primarily be on the output and the (potential) outcome of measures. In order to achieve tangible effects beyond signalling,³¹ sanctions must be implemented comprehensively.³² Further efforts to improve their implementation by the mem­ber states – of both the UN and the EU – particularly in the case of targeted sanctions, should be coupled with measures that help to assess and contain the negative consequences for societies in the respective target areas. Approaches such as systematic exchanges between the senders of sanctions and the implementing states with the private sector can be used in the interests of both concerns.

Conclusion

The benchmark for an FFP should be a protective sanctions policy aimed at promoting peace and improving human security, especially for marginalised groups. Of course, there can be conflicts between different foreign policy objectives. In view of increas­ing controversy concerning human rights issues and “gender policy” in international bodies, as well as over the use of unilateral sanctions in particular, such an approach will certainly meet resistance. This makes it all the more important to have criteria that can be used in individual cases to assess whether sanctions make sense, where German FFP can make a contribution, but also how far-reaching these meas­ures should be and how quickly they should be adopted in order to have a possible preventive effect. In general, it is important to work towards making the processes of the EU and UN sanctions systems fairer, more transparent and more inclusive. For the sanctions to be credible, achieve concrete goals and have more balanced effects from the point of view of an FFP, it is also important to include other perspectives in these processes, for example from civil society in the target regions and countries where sanctions are being applied. They should be used flexibly to sup­port the overarching political objectives and be con­sistently linked with other, “soft” instruments. Moreover, seeking dialogues with partner countries that unilaterally impose far-reaching sanctions – in particular the United States and the United Kingdom – is essential in order to address the undesirable conse­quences of sanctions as well as possible approaches in line with an FFP.

Abbreviations

The Authors

Dr Hürcan Aslı Aksoy

Head of the Center for Applied Turkey Studies (CATS) at SWP

Dr Muriel Asseburg

Senior Fellow in the Africa and Middle East Research Division

Nadine Biehler

Associate in the Global Issues Research Group

Dr Sabine Fischer

Senior Fellow in the Eastern Europe and Eurasia Research Division

Nadine Knapp

Associate in the Global Issues Research Division

Dr Anne Koch

Associate in the Global Issues Research Division

Dr Gerrit Kurtz

Associate in the Africa and Middle East Research Division

Dr Amrei Meier

Associate in the Global Issues Research Division

Pauline Marie Reineke

Former Research Assistant to the Director

Dr agr. Bettina Rudloff

Senior Associate in the EU/Europe Research Division

Prof. Dr Dr h. c. Peter-Tobias Stoll

University of Göttingen, Visiting Fellow in the Global Issues Research Division

Martha Stolze

Research Associate in the research group “Platform Algorithms and Digital Propaganda” at the Weizenbaum Institute, Berlin

Dr Judith Vorrath

Senior Associate in the Security Policy Research Division

Dr Azadeh Zamirirad

Deputy Head of the Africa and Middle East Research Division

Dr Claudia Zilla

Senior Fellow in The Americas Research Division