El país donde las mujeres dejaron de existir: Afganistán, cuatro años después de la retirada internacional

Legal Review of Paula Cisneros Cristóbal’s “Afghanistan: The Country Where Women Ceased to Exist” (CODESEL Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 5, October 2025, ISSN-e 3045-7750) Paula Cisneros Cristóbal’s contribution, “Afghanistan: The Country Where Women Ceased to Exist,” published in the CODESEL Bulletin (Vol. 1, No. 5, October 2025), offers a rigorous and comprehensive legal examination of the collapse of human rights in Afghanistan following the 2021 international withdrawal and the re-establishment of the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate. From the standpoint of Public International Law and International Human Rights Law, Cisneros reconstructs with scholarly precision the institutional evolution of Afghanistan — from the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the adoption of UN Security Council Resolutions 1368 and 1373, which recognized the right of self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter, to the promulgation of the 2004 Constitution and its subsequent annulment by the Taliban. This chronological and juridical analysis situates the present regression within the broader context of state collapse and political illegitimacy, identifying the 2020 Doha Agreement as the decisive turning point that stripped the Afghan government of authority and enabled the restoration of a theocratic regime. The central axis of the article lies in the international legal qualification of Taliban policies as a possible gender apartheid under Article 7 of the Rome Statute, defined as a crime against humanity involving the institutionalized segregation and systematic domination of one group over another on the basis of sex. Cisneros carefully enumerates the treaties violated — including the CEDAW, ICCPR, ICESCR, CRC, CAT, and CRPD — and demonstrates that Afghanistan, despite the lack of recognition of the Taliban Emirate, remains legally bound by these instruments pursuant to the principle of pacta sunt servanda (Article 26, Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties). The study is notable for its systematic and evidentiary method, correlating concrete human rights violations — such as the prohibition of female secondary and university education, exclusion from employment, restrictions on movement, suppression of public demonstrations, mandatory veiling, corporal punishments, and repeal of the 2009 Law on the Elimination of Violence Against Women — with the specific provisions of the relevant international treaties. This approach grants the article a high level of legal credibility and analytical depth, going beyond descriptive reporting toward juridical substantiation. Cisneros also develops a dual perspective of international responsibility: on one hand, the continuing state responsibility of Afghanistan for breaches of its conventional obligations; on the other, the individual criminal responsibility of Taliban leaders before the International Criminal Court (ICC). The author notes the 2025 arrest warrants issued against Haibatullah Akhundzada and Abdul Hakim Haqqani for widespread and systematic gender-based persecution, and the proceedings initiated by Germany, Australia, Canada, and the Netherlands before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for violations of CEDAW. Methodologically, the article combines normative and documentary analysis with official sources from the United Nations (UNAMA, OHCHR, and the Special Rapporteur Richard Bennett), and integrates recent Security Council resolutions — 2593 (2021), 2681 (2023), and 2721 (2023) — together with academic literature (Schmeidl, 2021; Kakar, 2023). This careful interweaving of legal sources strengthens the paper’s academic authority and positions it as a key reference in contemporary legal scholarship on post-2021 Afghanistan. In her conclusion, Cisneros asserts that Afghanistan has transformed into a theocratic State devoid of constitutional order, where women have been erased from public and political life. She argues that the international community’s response has been largely symbolic and insufficient, recommending that any diplomatic recognition or lifting of sanctions must remain conditioned upon the restoration of women’s and girls’ fundamental rights. In essence, this article stands as a doctrinally robust legal study, combining juridical precision with humanitarian insight. It provides a thorough diagnosis of the dismantling of the rule of law in Afghanistan, advances the emerging notion of gender apartheid as an international crime, and contributes meaningfully to the development of a doctrine of international responsibility for gender-based persecution.

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