The symposium recognized that the 1993 United Nations World Conference on Human Rights reaffirmed the universality of all human rights and the legitimate role of the international community in protecting human rights in general and gender equality for women in particular. Symposium participants also noted that, over the past decade, several societies have made progress toward achieving the goal of gender equality. In the United States, the feminist movement has been effective in reducing discrimination against women. In Ireland where courts have concluded that termination of pregnancy is permitted under the Offense Against the Person Act only to preserve the life or health of the mother, a 1992 referendum established the right of women to obtain abortion information and to travel abroad for abortions. In South Africa, statutes have been changed to permit women married under civil law to own property and to enter into contracts without the consent of their husbands. In some Eastern European countries, however, women cannot obtain certain jobs or hold elected positions that were once available to them. In China, advances in obstetrical medical technology have been used to enforce the government's population agenda. Symposium participants examined structural inequalities in African countries and legal challenges to women, feminist discourse in contemporary Latin American literature, sexual harassment in the workplace and equal employment legislation, women and war crimes, domestic violence and tribal protection of indigenous women in the United States, the global campaign for women's human rights, and women's human rights in the context of technology and the law. Footnotes and tables