This is the first commentary on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), analyzing the Convention article by article. Each chapter provides an overview of an article's negotiating history, interpretation, and all the relevant case law, including decisions and recommendations by the CEDAW Committee.
This book is a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between feminist theories and the law, and the way in which developments of the former have affected, and been affected by, the latter. The book takes as its starting point a study of women and culture on an international level, which demonstrates how religious and cultural influences have been fundamental in establishing contemporary legal and social mores. This provides the setting for an investigation into legal and social discrimination and inequality, and how this has been addressed by the emergence of feminism. A number of critiques and developments are examined.
The Convention was adopted by the UN's General Assembly in 1979 and entered into force in 1981. It amplifies some of the existing provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Its provisions include obligations for states to pursue policies for eliminating discrimination against women in the areas of government, nationality, access to education and employment opportunities, health care and equality before the law. As of December 2002, the Convention had 170 ratifications.
The United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women - as other international instruments - was negotiated in an international and multicultural context by diplomats and politicians from a number of countries. It dealt with a highly sensitive issue, the position and role of women in society and in the political decision-making process. The vast number of extensive reservations to the Convention bear witness to the fact that this is possibly one of the most contentious topics at the international level. Few other core universal human rights conventions have attracted a comparable number of reservations. This unique Guide is an attempt to create a picture of the legal--political background to the Convention. Its basic layout follows the style of a classical commentary with annotations to the individual provisions. These annotations draw on documentary sources from the years of preparatory discussions and negotiations (the travaux préparatoires). It primarily covers the genesis of the Convention, i.e. the drafting and negotiating process up to its adoption in 1979. To enhance the Guide's usefulness, a number of more recent documents have been incorporated, for example, the General Recommendations issued by the Committee on Elimination of Discrimination against Women have been reproduced and references to relevant recommendations have been inserted in the annotations to each provision in question. In addition to this, a number of other documents relative to the interpretation of the Convention have been reproduced in Part III, including lists of ratifications of and reservations to the Convention. Furthermore, lists of relevant global and regional instruments and case law have been compiled.
This volume is the fully revised and updated version of the first comprehensive commentary on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and its Optional Protocol. It reflects the developments during the decade following the publication of the first edition in 2012, which has also seen a notable rise in individual complaints (more than 85), ten new General Recommendations, and six new inquiry procedures as well as numerous statements, partly in conjunction with other UN human rights bodies. The Convention is a key international human rights instrument and the only one exclusively addressed to women. It has been described as the United Nations' 'landmark treaty in the struggle for women's rights'. At a time when the backlash against women's human rights and the concept of gender-based discrimination is increasingly challenged by governments and powerful societal actors, the Commentary is an important instrument to hold all state powers to account on their international obligations under the Convention. The Commentary analyses the interpretation of the Convention through the work of its monitoring body, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. It comprises detailed analyses of the Preamble and each article of the Convention and of the Optional Protocol, including a separate chapter on the cross-cutting substantive issue of violence against women. The sources relied on are the treaty language and the general recommendations, concluding observations, and case law under the Optional Protocol (individual complaints and inquiries), through which the Committee has interpreted and applied the Convention. Each chapter is self-contained, but the Commentary is conceived of as an integral whole. The book also includes an introduction which provides an overview of the Convention and its embedding in the international law of human rights as well as the most recent challenges to women's human rights worldwide.
In the first book-length treatment of the application of feminist theories of international law, Charlesworth and Chinkin argue that the absence of women in the development of international law has produced a narrow and inadequate jurisprudence that has legitimated the unequal position of women worldwide rather than confronting it. The boundaries of international law provides a feminist perspective on the structure, processes and substance of international law, shedding new light on treaty law, the concept of statehood and the right of self-determination, the role of international institutions and the law of human rights. Concluding with a consideration of whether the inclusion of women in the jurisdiction of international war crimes tribunals represents a significant shift in the boundaries of international law, the book encourages a dramatic rethinking of the discipline of international law. With a new introduction that reflects on the profound changes in international law since the book’s first publication in 2000, this provocative volume is essential reading for scholars, practitioners and students alike.
