A/HRC/20/28 of the Human Rights Council that would focus on laws and practices that discriminate against women (para. 57). 8. The Human Rights Council adopted, without a vote, resolution 15/23, which established the mandate of the Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice during its fifteenth session, on 1 October 2010. It is the second special procedure of the Human Rights Council dedicated to addressing women’s human rights, complementing the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, which was established in 1994 immediately following the World Conference on Human Rights. III. Conceptual framework 9. Effective elimination of discrimination against women requires the consistent political will of States, with broad-based consensus of whole societies, to formulate and implement laws that promote equality between men and women, prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, and prevent and provide redress for violence against women, along with policies and measures that create a conducive environment for women’s empowerment. 10. In more than two decades of democratization projects worldwide, beginning with the breakdown of Latin American authoritarian regimes and the fall of the Berlin Wall up to the Arab Spring in the Middle East and North Africa today, a wide range of efforts by States, citizens and organizations to address discrimination against women have been made as integral parts of bold and historic processes of the renewal of whole nations and regions. In other contexts, breakthroughs in law and practice occur as part of the responsiveness and accountability of States to an active citizenry committed to equality, non-discrimination and human rights for all women and men. The success or failure of efforts to effectively eliminate discrimination against women depends on how securely they are located within genuine processes of social and political transformation. 11. The political will to revise or repeal discriminatory laws can arise voluntarily as part of an overall renegotiation of the social contract, and as an act of astute policymaking compelled by social economic developments that have brought about undeniable and irreversible changes in women’s roles in practice. The growing participation of women in political, economic, social and cultural life has contributed to the introduction of genderresponsive changes in laws and policies on protection in the workplace, security in the home and community, and entitlements in property ownership and electoral processes. 12. Progress is not linear, however, and new political openings can bring about backlash, reverse advances and produce new forms of discriminatory laws and practices. Complex national reforms can result in contradictory laws and policies, between national/federal and subnational/local levels, across different regions of the country, and among sectors of social and economic life. Good practices in eliminating discrimination against women in law and in practice include the ability to overcome backlash or backsliding and establish grounds for the sustainability of achievements in substantive equality. 13. For legal guarantees of gender equality to benefit all women, implementation frameworks and strategies must be responsive to the intersections of sex-based discrimination with other grounds of discrimination, such as race, ethnicity, religion or belief, language, political affiliation, health, status, age, class, caste, national or social origin, property, birth, and sexual orientation and gender identity. Legal guarantees and implementation frameworks and strategies must also integrate special measures to reach women who face multiple forms of discrimination, such as rural and indigenous women, women with disabilities, women living in poverty and women facing other forms of 5