Global Pulse Blog

Between World AIDS Day (Dec. 1) and International Human Rights Day (Dec. 10), PHR is gathering 10,000 signatures asking the U.S. Senate to ratify the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women in 2010.

Conceived as a “Bill of Rights for Women,” CEDAW sets a common international definition for gender-based discrimination, and establishes an agenda for ending it. States ratifying CEDAW are required to institutionalize gender equality through domestic legislation, repeal and replace all discriminatory provisions in their laws, and establish public institutions of recourse for women who require protection against discrimination.

Discrimination is bad. Women should have equal rights. Surely this is something we can agree on? Not so fast. Read further for the controversial stuff.

CEDAW sets a universal standard as the most comprehensive international treaty addressing women’s equal political, civil, economic, cultural and social rights. Its ratification in the United States would strengthen US laws that ensure women’s equal rights as well as illustrate the United States’ commitment to serve as a global leader of human rights (PHR). As Nora O’Connell and Ritu Sharma put it in the Human Rights Brief:

CEDAW, like any treaty, is not a silver bullet. Just as the 1964 Civil Rights Act did not end racism in the United States of America, this treaty will not end human rights abuses against women and girls around the world. But like that landmark legislation, it will provide a roadmap for those countries that want to improve the status of women as well as legal recourse for victims when needed. By setting an international standard that countries have voluntarily agreed to, CEDAW serves as a powerful self-help tool for supporters of women’s human rights to urge their governments to do better. We have seen this work with other treaties. The U.S. ratification of the UN Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Racial Discrimination in 1994, for example, amplified the U.S. voice in the successful international drive to end racial apartheid in South Africa.

After its adoption by the U.N. General Assembly in 1979, the convention was introduced in the U.S. in 1980 and signed by President Carter. It then proceeded to stall in the Senate multiple times, and despite support from individual state legislatures and major public bodies, has not been ratified to this day — leaving the United States in the company of Iran, Somalia, Sudan, and three small Pacific Island nations who have also held out on CEDAW ratification. I am not informed about Somalia’s and Tonga’s reasons for rejecting CEDAW, but in the U.S. reasons for its controversy have included the following:

• General opposition to U.S. participation in international agreements on human rights, similar to that encountered by the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

• Concern that CEDAW reduces the sovereignty of nations and leads to over-reliance on international law
• Concern that “discrimination” is defined too liberally and could be used in frivolous lawsuits
• Concern that CEDAW de-values marriage and motherhood, and will impose culturally inappropriate practices backed by radical Western feminism
• The belief that CEDAW would sanction abortion and legalize prostitution
• For why these objections are unfounded, see: overview and detailed analysis. Mostly it boils down to the fact that CEDAW cannot impose any specific laws originating from outside a member country, is self-imposed, and aims to reconcile a universal recognition of women’ rights with culturally appropriate implementation.
• Other critics argue that CEDAW is, if anything, too weak and voluntary. However, in the 20 years since its introduction, it has been used in numerous and concrete ways to establish and protect women’s rights around the world.

To date, the United States remains the only developed country to have failed to ratify the convention — while countries where women’s rights are severely bound under religious law (Islamic countries), abortion is against the law (Ireland; Latin American countries), and women are repressed as a matter of tradition (pretty much everywhere else) have at least made the gesture of ratification. With President Obama’s reintroduction of CEDAW to the U.S. international treaty agenda in 2009, we have another chance to put our support behind this key agreement, and to show America’s commitment to the rights of women worldwide and at home.

Assuming, that is, that “we”, as a nation, actually have such a commitment — something I am personally in the habit of doubting. Although Americans individually donate millions of dollars to philanthropic efforts helping women around the world, discrimination against the interests of women — especially those in developing countries, or in urban minority neighborhoods — has been deeply entrenched in U.S. practices and policy. The striking down of the Global Gag Rule in early 2009 was a bright departure from years of backwards policies that shackled the real reproductive needs of women living in desperate circumstances and far away to American internal cultural politics. The current strength of the Stupak and Nelson “anti-abortion” amendments in the domestic struggle over health care reform is more or less a domestic extension of Mexico City Policy. If implemented, these amendments will disproportionately impact the health of poor and minority women — women who are already at tremendous disadvantage in the realm of sexual and reproductive health, as evidenced by current racial disparities in HIV/AIDS infections and maternal mortality. My personal opinion is that both the former endurance of the Global Gag Rule, and the current efforts to institutionalize nation-wide religious limitations on reproductive health care, are expressions of a tacit understanding that somehow, the reproductive health needs of women have little importance beyond that of a political token — especially if the women in question are poor or dark-skinned or both — because after all, sexual victimization and maternity-related suffering have been the lot of women in the natural course of things. And the idea of suffering being “natural” for certain people is an attitude that that ought to make any doctor’s blood boil.

Whether you believe the U.S. is a global leader on women’s rights and should stand up and say so, or that it has always been sadly behind most developed countries in its conceptualization of gender relations and needs to work harder, I urge you to sign the petition in support of CEDAW ratification. Please share your thoughts on gender, policy, and U.S. influence on reproductive health around the world.