Ruth Halperin-Kaddari

Professor
Ruth Halperin-Kaddari
Professor Ruth Halperin-Kaddari
רות הלפרין-קדרי
	Halperin-Kaddari in 2015
Member of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women
	In office; 2006–2018
Personal details
Born	15 May 1966 (age 58)
Nationality	Israeli
Alma mater	Yale Law School
Occupation	Law professor
Awards	International Women of Courage Award

Ruth Halperin-Kaddari (Hebrew: רות הלפרין-קדרי; born 15 May 1966; ) is an Israeli legal scholar and international women's rights advocate who is known for her work on family law, feminist legal theory, women's rights in international law, and women and religion. She was a member of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women from 2006 to 2018, and was the committee's vice chair during several terms.^[1] She is Professor of Law at the Bar-Ilan University and is the founding Academic Director of the Ruth and Emanuel Rackman Center for the Advancement of the Status of Women. She is also involved in international academic collaborations on the theme of women, state, and religion, and participates in international litigations as an expert on Israeli family law.^[2]

She was one of the first recipients of the U.S. Secretary of State's International Women of Courage Award for her work on international women's rights in 2007. She was ranked as one of the world's hundred most influential people in gender equality policy in 2018.^[3]

Career

Halperin-Kaddari is a daughter of Menachem Zvi Kaddari, a noted linguist and expert on ancient Semitic languages who was rector of the Bar-Ilan University.

She studied law at the Bar-Ilan University, where she earned her LL.B. in 1989. She subsequently earned an LL.M. in 1990 and a Doctor of Juridical Science in 1993, both at Yale Law School in the United States. She is Professor of Law at the Bar-Ilan University; in 2001 she founded the Ruth and Emanuel Rackman Center for the Advancement of the Status of Women, a social-legal centre that works to advance gender justice, and she has served as the centre's Academic Director since its establishment.^[4]^[5]^[6]

United Nations roles

She was elected by the state parties to a four-year term on the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women in 2006 and was vice chairperson of the committee from 2009 to 2010. At the time of her election she was the committee's youngest member. She was reelected to her second term on the committee in 2010 and to her third term in 2014. She was again elected vice chairperson of the committee in 2017.^[7]^[8] On the committee she served for over a decade alongside the former French Minister of Gender Equality Nicole Ameline and the UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict and UN Under-Secretary-General Pramila Patten.

During her term on CEDAW she led the successful adoption (in 2013) of a new General Recommendation on Economic Consequences of Family Relations and their Dissolution; and has conducted (in 2018) the Inquiry into North-Ireland's restrictive abortion regime, co-authored the UN report which concluded that the lack of provision for abortion in Northern Ireland is a form of violence against women.,^[9] all of which led in October 2019 to decriminalization of abortions in Northern-Ireland, an unprecedented move in international human rights law.

The Ruth and Emanuel Rackman Center for the Advancement of the Status of Women

In 2001 she founded the Ruth and Emanuel Rackman Center for the Advancement of the Status of Women, a social-legal centre that works to advance gender justice, and she has been the centre's director since then. Established at Bar-Ilan University’s Faculty of Law with the goal of improving women’s status and ending gender discrimination and inequality in Israeli society, and bettering women’s standing within family law, particularly Jewish family law.^[10]

Honours

She is a recipient of numerous research grants and prizes, including two major grants from the Israel Science Foundation (2000, 2005); the Zeltner Award for Young Legal Scholars (2000); The Pogach Award for research in Jewish Law (2001-2002), The Belush Israel Feminist Award, US/Israel Women to Women (2002), The Dafna Izraeli Award for Gender Research (together with Dr. Bryna Bogoch) (2004), The Eleanor P. Jacobson Woman of Valor Award for Hadassah–Brandeis Institute Exceptional Research Award Applicants (together with Dr. Eyal Katvan) (2006), The Hadassah-Brandeis Institute Research Award (together with Dr. Eyal Katvan) (2006), The International Award for Woman of Courage, U.S. State Department (2007), The Israeli Bar Association Central District Person of the Year in Law (2010), The "Ot Katan" Award for the Advancement of Gender Justice through Voluntary Work, awarded by the Ruach Nashit NGO in Israel (2014), The Rappaport Prize for Women Generating Change in Israeli Society (2016), in January 2017 she received the Knights of Quality (Academia category), awarded by the Movement for Quality Government in Israel. In 2018 she was named on Apolitical’s 100 most influential people in gender policy around the world.^[3]^[2]