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In 2000, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1325. Rooted in the efforts of civil society and women’s rights activists, the resolution was also shaped by the lessons of the mass atrocities in Rwanda and Bosnia, particularly their devastating impact on women and girls. It was these experiences that led the international community to lay the foundations for the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. The resolution emerged at a moment marked by a broader confidence in multilateralism, international law, and liberal democracy (despite their evident limitations and exclusions). In the following years, gender equality policies increasingly entered the realm of state foreign and security policy, leading to the adoption of feminist foreign policies (FFP) by a number of states.
FFP has often been framed as a corrective, if not an antidote, to state-centric geo- and power politics. Yet 25 years after the adoption of UNSCR 1325 these same dynamics are reasserting themselves. International law and the rules-based order are under strain, while expansionist logics and geopolitical competition are gaining ground. Global military spending has reached record levels, while budgets for international cooperation and humanitarian aid are being cut. At the same time, civic spaces are shrinking and backlash against gender equality is intensifying, closely linked to the global rise of authoritarianism. Several countries, among them Germany, have rolled-back their FFPs, and commitment to WPS is regressing.
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