Feminist Peace Network

RH Reality Check has an excellent article about whether and how to push for the ratification of CEDAW by the U.S. Senate:

“(T)he Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). CEDAW, a treaty adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1979, is often described simply as “an international bill of rights for women.” While President Carter signed the Convention and forwarded it onto the Senate in 1980, the U.S. has still not ratified the Convention nearly thirty years later. Having signed but failed to ratify CEDAW, the United States joins the ranks of the eight remaining countries, including Iran and Sudan, that have yet to ratify the Convention. In fact, the United States holds the awkward and ignominious title of being the only country to have signed, but not ratified, CEDAW.”

Is it time once again to push for ratification? Unfortunately, it’s not a simple question,

“Although the renewed efforts to secure U.S. ratification of CEDAW are certainly commendable, pro-ratification advocates must tread carefully. History looms large in this debate and brings with it dangerous accoutrements - in particular, the so-called “Helms Understanding,” which interprets CEDAW as expressly not “creat[ing] any right to abortion,” first proposed by Sen. Jesse Helms in the 1994 hearings, and later attached to the 2002 version of the Convention reported by the Foreign Relations Committee to the Senate. In the context of the 2002 ratification debate, this abortion-neutral interpretation of CEDAW version was supported by most of the major women’s rights and human rights groups in the United States.

But there is growing recognition within the international community, if not domestically, that CEDAW’s language on gender equality 4 - particularly its broad ranging anti-discrimination provision - evokes a positive duty for the state to ensure non-criminalized access to abortion services. In other words, CEDAW does suggest the right to an abortion. And as such, U.S. ratification of a watered-down version of CEDAW might actually be detrimental for women’s reproductive rights 5 abroad, by entrenching a significant international precedent for interpreting the Convention as abortion neutral. In turn, this would significantly diminish CEDAW’s usefulness as a tool women’s rights advocates can use to push for reproductive rights reform.”

The article’s author, Joanna Pozen sums it up this way,

“A renewal of efforts to ratify CEDAW as “abortion neutral” is dangerous as the Convention is, in fact, not neutral on this issue. Although the U.S. should ratify CEDAW in its pro-abortion interpretation, arguably, ratifying CEDAW without such an interpretation could pose greater harm to reproductive rights abroad than if the U.S. were to continue to not ratify it at all. Only when ratified as the pro-abortion treaty that it is can the Convention continue to flourish as an international standard that is protective of women’s reproductive rights.”

Filed under: Uncategorized, Commentary