Women and the LGBT community in Russia and Turkey face pervasive discrimination. Only a small percentage dare to challenge their mistreatment in court. Facing domestic police and judges who often refuse to recognize discrimination, a small minority of activists have exhausted their domestic appeals and then turned to their last hope: the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The ECtHR, located in Strasbourg, France, is widely regarded as the most effective international human rights court in existence. Russian citizens whose rights have been violated at home have brought tens of thousands of cases to the ECtHR over the past two decades. But only one of these cases resulted in a finding of gender discrimination by the ECtHR-and that case was brought by a man. By comparison, the Court has found gender discrimination more frequently in decisions on Turkish cases.

Courting Gender Justice explores the obstacles that confront citizens, activists, and lawyers who try to bring gender discrimination cases to court. To shed light on the factors that make rare victories possible in discrimination cases, the book draws comparisons among forms of discrimination faced by women and LGBT people in Russia and Turkey. Based on interviews with human rights and feminist activists and lawyers in Russia and Turkey, this engaging book grounds the law in the personal experiences of individual people fighting to defend their rights.

Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of British Columbia.

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"Courting Gender Justice is a beacon for one of the most salient legal issues of our time. Moving seamlessly between domestic and international legal and political analysis, it provides a playbook for the pitfalls and successes of utilizing courts for legal change. Case studies of litigation strategies in Turkey, Russia, and the ECtHR are a treasure trove of comparative analysis across legal domains and jurisdictions. This book is essential reading for scholars, practitioners, and activists mobilizing to eliminate gender discrimination in Europe today." --Rachel A. Cichowski, University of Washington

"The European Court of Human Rights is often portrayed as an institution in crisis, a victim of its own success collapsing under its caseload. Refreshingly, this book tells the story of an overlooked crisis: women are struggling to find a path to the Court in order to have complaints of gender discrimination heard. The authors chart in meticulous, eye-opening detail the many obstacles that women in Russia and Turkey have to overcome in the pursuit of gender justice. It's an important read for anyone interested in women's rights and international human rights law." --Loveday Hodson, University of Leicester

"An authoritative, rich, and vivid account of the challenges to fighting gender discrimination in Russian courts and in the European Court of Human Rights. The authors lay out the long and difficult trajectory that awaits gender discrimination cases as they wend their way through Russian courts and occasionally to the ECtHR- whose judges have also been reluctant to confront the issue-and make deft use of comparisons, both with Russian litigation on LGBT cases, and LGBT and gender discrimination cases from Turkey. The result is impressive indeed." --Peter H. Solomon, University of Toronto

"Courting Gender Justice is a truly remarkable book. It is both a hopeful book that points to successful legal strategies, and a devastating account of widespread discrimination. It is one of those rare books that not only challenges your thinking, but also changes how you think about courts and legal mobilization." --Mikael Rask Madsen, University of Copenhagen