By Tanya Doriss, George Washington University
Thursday July 26, 2007
What is CEDAW?
The United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) is commonly referred to as the “Treaty for the Rights of Women” or the “International Bill of Rights for Women.” The document was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 1979 and was the first international agreement to comprehensively address women’s rights within both the public and private spheres.
As of June 2007, 185 nations have ratified CEDAW, thereby agreeing to adhere to its goal of eliminating discrimination against women. Nearly 30 years after the original convention, the United States is the only industrialized nation that has not adopted CEDAW. Other countries that have not signed include Iran and Sudan.
Why Care about CEDAW?
CEDAW is the first treaty to recognize discrimination against women as a human rights violation. While CEDAW acknowledges the strong influence of culture and tradition in shaping gender roles and family relations, it places an affirmative obligation on nations to ensure that women can fully participate in and contribute to all aspects of life in their home countries.
In ratifying the convention, the United States would commit to undertaking a series of measures to end discrimination against women including:
CEDAW’s History in the United States
For the United States to adopt an international treaty, the president must sign it and the agreement must then be ratified by at least two-thirds, or 67 “yes” votes, in the Senate. The House of Representatives does not play a role in treaty ratification.
Despite significant U.S. participation in the drafting of the original convention and President Carter’s signature on July 17, 1980, it took 10 years before the Senate held hearings on CEDAW. The convention was finally reported out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in September 1994. Unfortunately, a group of conservative senators led by Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC) put a hold on the legislation and it never came up for a full vote during the 103rd Congress.
In 2002, under Sen. Joseph Biden’s (D-DE) leadership, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a second set of hearings on CEDAW. The committee voted 12-7 to send the treaty to the full Senate for a ratification vote. However, once again the Senate did not vote on the treaty before the close of the session. As a result, CEDAW remains in political limbo and must yet again be approved by the Foreign Relations Committee before it can go to the floor for a full ratification vote by the Senate.
Why Conservative Opposition to CEDAW Is Unfounded
Some conservative groups feel threatened by the prospect of a bill of rights for American women, but their criticisms do not withstand informed scrutiny:
• Critics say that the United States has to follow every recommendation outlined in CEDAW.
Ratifying CEDAW would require the United States to report on its compliance with the treaty, but it would not require the United States to change its laws. The United States already has many laws that are consistent with CEDAW, but ratification would encourage the United States to consider additional ways to reduce discrimination against women.
• Critics incorrectly claim that CEDAW promotes abortion and will require federal funding for women to have abortions.
CEDAW promotes family planning, not abortion. In fact, language referring to abortion was intentionally left out of the convention in deference to the many CEDAW signatory countries in which abortion is illegal. The State Department has formally acknowledged that CEDAW is "abortion neutral."
• Critics contend that CEDAW prohibits Mother’s Day.
The treaty in no way prohibits the celebration of mothers. While in one case the U.N. committee that oversees compliance with CEDAW expressed concern about Belarus’ use of Mother’s Day and a Mother’s Award to perpetuate limiting, stereotypical roles for women, 35 other countries who are party to CEDAW celebrate Mother’s Day.
CEDAW in Action
CEDAW has been used successfully by individuals and women’s groups around the world to improve the status of women in their countries. For example, Costa Rica, which ratified CEDAW in 1986, enacted mechanisms that force abusive spouses to provide ongoing economic support to their former partners. After ratifying CEDAW in 1985, Uganda began to fund campaigns against domestic violence. And in Egypt, CEDAW’s ratification encouraged a national girls’ literacy campaign that reduced female illiteracy by 11 percent between 1986 and 1996.
We’re lucky that the U.S. government has already done much to remedy discrimination against women, including passing the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, which coordinates criminal justice and community responses to domestic violence and sexual assault cases. Nonetheless, the work remains unfinished. In 2005, 176,540 American women reported that they were victims of rape or sexual assault. In addition, women continue to earn less than comparably skilled men for the same work.
If the United States were to adopt CEDAW, the government would be committed to a set of international standards obligating it to take affirmative steps of its choosing to ensure the full participation of women in society. This would help the United States measure its progress in accomplishing important goals such as reducing sexual harassment and violence, increasing the availability of maternity leave and child care, and ensuring equal treatment in the workplace. In addition to improving the status of women in the United States, ratifying CEDAW would lend weight to the treaty and enhance our credibility as a human rights and moral leader in other parts of the world.
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Comments
“Some conservative groups feel threatened by the prospect of a bill of rights for American women, but their criticisms do not withstand informed scrutiny:”
Conservatives aren’t threatened by a bill of rights for women…especially conservative women. This is more a matter of US sovereignty than the spirit of this treaty. As you said we already have many laws protecting women, and a legislative process to strengthen those laws if necessary.
We want our judges interpreting laws written by our representatives and not looking at how other countries and other courts interpret them. I think that’s a legitimate concern.
— Kevin - Jul 28, 01:53 AM - #This is a perfect example of the United Nations making itself irrelevant. It establishes a system for achieving some good and noble goal; the proceedings then get dragged out by procedural nitpicking and impassioned speeches, until everybody with sense and/or perspective has dropped out because they have better things to do with their lives. That leaves the passionate extremists, who are happy to discard the remainder of their lives to ride their hobbyhorse(s), and who then, after much posturing, produce something that can’t be parodied because it constitutes a reductio ad absurdum of “progressive” thinking on the subject.
CEDAW will not be ratified because American politicians have become increasingly aware of how things like that go. They are aware that if it were ratified, The Hague would be filled with lawyers arguing about, e.g., the number of toilets in the rest rooms in U.S. sports arenas, while the rest of the world uses such issues as misdirection to prevent addressing FGM, prostitute slavery, and the rest of the real abuses. At root, it’s the same reason we haven’t ratified the Kyoto Protocols, and won’t.
Regards,
— Ric Locke - Jul 30, 09:03 AM - #Ric
“The Hague would be filled with lawyers arguing about, e.g., the number of toilets in the rest rooms in U.S. sports arenas, while the rest of the world uses such issues as misdirection to prevent addressing FGM, prostitute slavery, and the rest of the real abuses. “
Ric – do you actually think the the worst women’s human rights issue that we deal with in the US is the number of toilets in the rest rooms at US sports arenas?
What about inequal pay? Rape? Sexual abuse? While the “real issues” as you call them, happen less frequently in the US – FGM, prostitute slavery, and honor killings DO happen here, too.
And if you’re positing the US in a position of moral authority or at least social progress by claiming that the only women’s rights issue we deal with here is the number of toilets in a stadium, then wouldn’t it make all the more sense for a country which claims progress for women and moral superiority to ratify this treaty?
Plus – your alarmist vision of the Hague overrun by crazy American feminists complaining about bathrooms is far fetched. Of the many organizations in The Hague, none would have jurisdiction over one country’s applications of CEDAW.
— Ellen - Jul 30, 10:22 AM - #Ric is right. You can see the writing on the walls here. It is similar to the way Israel, but not its neighbors, is always accused of civil rights violations.
— Dom - Jul 30, 11:57 AM - #No, Ellen, I don’t think “the worst women’s human rights issue that we deal with in the US is the number of toilets in the rest rooms at US sports arenas”. The letters “e.g.”, as used in my comment, are commonly used to introduce a rhetorical device, often hyperbole. Check with your English instructor.
I do think we have elaborate and sometimes redundant methods of dealing with human rights issues of all kinds in this country. The fact that the resolution doesn’t always fit your ideology doesn’t invalidate the fact that we address such issues routinely and forcefully. Adding a further layer of intervention will do nothing to better resolve them, especially since recent history establishes beyond a doubt that it will be used only to damage America while avoiding any slightest reference to conditions elsewhere. The treatment of Ayan Hirsi Ali alone establishes that, without requiring reference to the Geneva Conventions, Kyoto, or any of the other “international law” that serves as cover for horrendous abuses while punishing Americans for trivial violations already addressed by U.S. procedure and law.
Regards,
— Ric Locke - Jul 30, 03:10 PM - #Ric
To Ellen: rape, sexual abuse, FGM, and killings, honor or otherwise, are already crimes in the US and are viewed with abhorrence by the vast majority. Unequal pay is a result of different vocational and life paths (i.e. dropping out of the workforce for years to raise children), rather than actually different gendered wage scales. American women are simply not oppressed on a systematic level, and we don’t need to ratify this feel-good, unenforceable waste of paper.
— Sue - Aug 1, 10:01 PM - #to Sue:
— jane sanderson - Aug 2, 11:46 AM - #“American women are simply not oppressed on a systematic level”, you say? That’s just ridiculous. We can assume you’re from an evangelical or simply “christian” mindset and, therefore, have already accepted your second class standing. Go ahead and be second class, subservient and a lot of other things you apparently don’t even see, but don’t pretend to speak for the millions of american women who certainly are oppressed. While the oppression may no be visible, like a burka – and abuse may not be sanctioned – pretending they don’t exist because we’re american is, as I said, just ridiculous
The US must ratify this international law. By not ratifing this law we are proving how staunch we are to keep women, all women without rights.
— Joanne Nowak - Aug 2, 11:51 AM - #To Sue:
— Sohana - Aug 2, 04:48 PM - #“Unequal pay is a result of different vocational and life paths” is compltely and utterly not true. Unequal pay means that if you are a female CEO of a company you are paid significantly less than if you were a male CEO of that same company. Womens rights has actually been declining more and more within the United States during these past several decades. There have been measures attempted in Congress to limit our choice and our rights and much more. Some people might deny it or disagree that this is happening but it is. If you are in a place where this isn’t happening then good for you, but don’t be blind to places where this is happening.
To Jane Sanderson:
You attack Sue with no basis, and show yourself to be a bigot. Why do you single out Christian women?
For all you know, Sue could be a Buddist, an Atheist, or a Muslim. You engaged in the lowest form of debate, name calling and stupidity.
You can’t refute her points, so you attack her.
I think this treaty is a worthless piece of paper. Am I sexist? I think America can deal with its own problems independently.
If the Equal Rights Amendment can’t be passed by the states, why should this be passed by Congress?
— Mike Radtke - Aug 5, 05:20 PM - #I agree that the women’s rights movement is absolutely necessary and long-overdue. However, this article implies that the UN is a centralized international legislative body and that we should be deeply concerned with its processes and policies. Since when? If UN politicians learn from the US congress how to side-skirt the heaviest issues by blowing a single issue out of proportion, I don’t want my country’s name on any of their papers. If only.
— Mike Weatherl, Jr. - Aug 10, 12:52 AM - #Personally I think its a good thing however, just so we are all clear on this issue by ratifying this we are obliged to also allow women into combat roles. Have we all thought of the ramifications of this move? Do we want our armed forces weakened by allowing women into this mix? The very thougth fills me with dread!
— elninjo - Dec 9, 09:59 PM - #