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This reply explores points of agreement, tensions, and lingering questions related to a scholarly conversation among the pieces by DeLaet, Baldez, and Bunting on the potential and limits of international human rights law as a tool for promoting women's rights and equality as part of this special edition of Global Discourse on Gender, Sexuality, and the Law. DeLaet's piece takes a macro view of this question and points to the failure of international human rights law to generate systemic change globally. In her examination of Cuba's participation in the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, Baldez offers a relatively more positive assessment of the potential for international human rights law to transform human rights outcomes when states participate in treaty reporting processes. Focusing specifically on international criminal law, Bunting's exploration of Ugandan victim survivors' views on the prosecution of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court offers a mixed perspective, whereby international criminal trials may provide political space for meaning-making and historical documentation even if they do not provide for restorative justice, healing, or gender equality. Each of these pieces indicates that law in and of itself is insufficient to generate transformative change in support of women's rights and equality. They differ in the extent to which they view law as a primary tool for mobilizing change.

This article weaves together insights from political science, human rights scholarship, feminist legal theory, and other critical perspectives to explore the limits of global legalism as a primary mechanism for promoting women's rights. Specifically, it examines international human rights law governing women's rights to consider the limitations of law as a mechanism for improving the status of women globally. Although its development has been prolific, formal international human rights law is characterized by a significant gap between aspirational rhetoric and the reality of limited implementation and enforcement. This gap between rhetoric and reality demonstrates the limitations of a universalistic legal framework as a mechanism for promoting significant gains for women's equality and rights. The article investigates the limitations of international human rights law as a tool for promoting women's rights through a close examination of human rights treaty systems, specifically theConvention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women.