A PRACTITIONER’S GUIDE TO INCREASING WOMEN’S ACCESS TO ELECTORAL JUSTICE by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.”59 Governments around the world have made these commitments by ratifying these and other human rights treaties, voting for human rights instruments in the United Nations, and enshrining many of these rights as part of domestic legal frameworks, including their national constitutions. As noted, many countries’ constitutions include clauses that guarantee gender equality and prohibit discrimination at the national level. Some even have laws that focus on gender equality and women’s empowerment, and many countries have national institutions or ministries that are meant to guarantee gender equality. However, although these laws, policies, and regulations exist, they often are not implemented in a robust or meaningful way. 60 Having the laws in place, though, can give activists and other stakeholders a legal basis on which to advocate for reform. One specific type of law meant to ensure women’s political participation is gender quota laws, which are in use in more than half the countries in the world.61 Gender quotas are affirmative action measures that are designed to increase the number or proportion of women candidates or elected representatives (or both). Types of quota designs can vary for different electoral systems, but all are meant to increase women’s participation – often with the goal of achieving a critical mass – in elected or appointed bodies.62 Despite this intention, gender quotas are not always effective in their goals because of lax implementation by those responsible and because of a lack of political will among political parties to follow the laws in good faith. For example, some countries’ legal and regulatory frameworks do not impose penalties when political parties choose not to comply with a gender quota. In Ukraine, the law requires parties to include gender quotas as part of their party statutes, but there are no legal sanctions for non-compliance. 63 In Burkina Faso, the Law on Gender Quotas, passed in 2020, requires parties to include 30 percent of members of each gender (based on the gender binary) on their party lists and requires the first two-thirds of names on each party list to alternate between women and men.64 Parties are given a financial incentive if they comply but face no penalties if they do not. As a result, in the 2020 general elections, out of a total of 1,565 national and provincial party lists, only 267 (17 percent) were headed by women. Currently, women make up just 19.7 percent of Burkina Faso’s Parliament, far below the 30 percent minimum that the quota endeavors to achieve. 65 In countries where there are consequences for non-compliance, election commissions often have roles in enforcing the quota. In Indonesia, the independent General Election Supervisory Agency, the Bawaslu, disqualified the candidate lists of a party in two electoral districts for non-compliance. The Bawaslu allowed parties to adjust the lists to bring them in line with the quota, “simultaneously enforcing the gender quota and ensuring efficient election administration.”66 In many places, though, political parties are creative in finding loopholes when they do not want to field women candidates, even if there are sanctions for quota non-compliance. In Nepal, parties are required to nominate members of different genders for the mayoral and deputy mayoral positions in local elections if they put 59 United Nations. (1948). Orozco-Henríquez, Ayoub, and Ellis. (2010). 61 Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), Inter-Parliamentary Union, & Stockholm University, Gender Quotas Database. (2021). 62 International IDEA. (2022). Gender Quotas Database. 63 Chirillo, G., Daiier, Z., Kovryzhenky, D., Palagnyuk, O., and Saveli, S. (2019, September). Gender Analysis of Ukraine's Electoral and Political Process. 64 Chirillo et al. (2021). (unpublished) CEPPS Gender Assessment Report: Executive Summary. 65 Alliance Sahel. (2023, April 13). Contribute to the Effectiveness of Women's and Girls' Rights. 66 Waugh, R. (2021). IFES Election Case Law Analysis Series: Lessons on Gender Equality and Women's Political Participation. IFES – The International Foundation for Electoral Systems. 60 35