Women Leaders Advancing International Justice

In this episode of Justice Beyond the Bench, hosts Jane Charles-Voltaire and Amie Lewis speak with Sangeetha Yogendran, Former Senior Program Manager at the Asia Justice Coalition, about the Women Leaders in International Justice and Accountability (WLIJA) Project. The three-year initiative aims to strengthen women’s leadership in international law by expanding expertise, mentorship, and collaboration across the Asia region. Through partnerships with local civil society organizations in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, the project examines barriers that limit women’s advancement in legal systems and international justice spaces. Yogendran highlights how gender disparity, institutional barriers rooted in Global North legal frameworks, and limited access to leadership opportunities continue to restrict women’s participation in higher levels of international law and justice institutions.

The conversation also explores how the project uses a collaborative and locally driven approach to design solutions. Through systems-mapping workshops and consultations with women practitioners at different stages of their careers, the initiative has developed targeted interventions such as an anonymous reporting mechanism addressing harassment in Sri Lanka’s legal profession and practitioner guidance notes in Bangladesh that help legal advocates better use existing laws to protect displaced and minority communities. Another innovative effort involves feminist rewriting of judicial decisions to demonstrate how legal reasoning and outcomes can shift when viewed through a gender-responsive lens. Ultimately, Yogendran emphasizes that advancing women’s leadership in law comes down to one critical factor—access: access to opportunities, institutions, and decision-making spaces where women can shape justice systems that reflect diverse experiences and realities.