PROGRESS

Law Guarantees 40 Libyan Women Legislators

Better than representation in U.S. Congress.

A landmark law passed Wednesday night in Libya’s National Transitional Council that guarantees women at least 40 seats on the new 200-member Constituent Assembly—a 20-percent representation. That’s better than the current U.S. Congress, which has 93 women in 541 seats—a 17-percent representation. The initial law would have guaranteed 10 percent of seats to women, but the provision was later dropped to favor the final version, which requires parties to allocate 40 seats to women in the assembly. (Parties name 80 of the 200 seats in the parliament.) The assembly, once put in place, will draft the country’s new constitution.