UNDP, in partnership with UN Women, UNFPA, and ESCWA, has conducted this study on Gender Justice & the Law in the Arab States Region to provide a comprehensive assessment of laws and policies affecting gender equality and protection against gender-based violence in Arab countries. The report is composed of 18 country profiles accessible online, each of which maps a country’s key legislative develop- ments and gaps regarding gender justice. This introduction provides the analytical framework and methodological approach that has guided each country analysis and is followed by a brief summary of the legal framework in each country examined.

This study and its conceptualization adhere to the concept of human development and to the principle that gender justice is fundamental to human development. Human development – as defined by the first UNDP Human Development Report and building on Amartya Sen’s work on “Development as Freedom” – is “the process of enlarging people's choices,” and thus allowing them to “lead a long and healthy life,12 to be educated, to enjoy a decent standard of living” as well as to have “political freedom, other guaranteed human rights and various ingredients of self-respect."