International norms such as United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 which support women’s contribution to peacemaking, are not yet well integrated in the drafting of peace agreement texts. Such texts continue to miss opportunities to include relevant language on women’s rights and gender perspectives, and mediators and negotiators often lack the knowledge on how this might actually be achieved.

The publication examines six peace agreements from the Asia and Pacific region to identify how reference to women’s rights and gender perspectives were included – or excluded – in those texts. The report focuses in particular on five recurring issues in peace processes – power sharing, security arrangements, access to justice, resource sharing, and the monitoring of agreements – and recommends alternative wording to improve the agreements’ references to women’s rights and gender perspectives.