The IAWJ was founded in 1991 after fifty female judges from around the world were invited to participate in the tenth anniversary meeting of the United StatesNational Association of Women Judges. It was decided that gender discrimination in the judiciary would be easier to combat with the forming of an international alliance. In October 1991, women judges in 15 countries approved the inaugural constitution of the IAWJ. Its first meeting was held in October 1992, bringing together 82 judges from 42 different countries in San Diego. The issue that interested them most was family violence. Female judges sponsored workshops and conferences around the world to teach about the prevalence of domestic violence, how to prevent it, and how to enact laws to define it as a crime with penalties. The IAWJ also took on a project to educate judges on how to apply international human rights instruments to cases affecting women in local courts. The IAWJ's first president was Arline Pacht. In May 1994, it held a conference on Rome on domestic violence. In 2010, when the UK's Baroness Hale was elected President of IAWJ, it had over 4,000 members from over 90 countries. By 2017, it had over 5,000 members. By 2019, it had over 6,000 members.
Structure
The IAWJ is based in Washington DC and is a non-profit, non-governmental organisation. Its members represent all levels of the judiciary worldwide. It seeks to pioneer judicial education programs to advance human rights, uproot gender bias from judicial systems and promote women’s access to courts. It has a ten member Board of Directors and a seven member Executive Council. The IAWJ holds a biennial conference, meeting in London 2012 and in Arusha, Tanzania in 2014, where Teresita de Castro from the Philippines became President. The IAWJ is credited with creating the term "sextortion" in 2009 to describe the pervasive form of sexual exploitation that occurs when people in positions of authority seek to extort sexual favours in exchange of something within their power to grant or withhold. The IAWJ works with national associations in five regions to develop and implement training on issues concerning discrimination and violence against women, including its judicial training initiative, the Jurisprudence of Equality Program.
