The Three R’s of CEDAW Commitment: Ratification, Reservation, and Rejection

Abstract

Human rights treaties have mixed success records for improving member states’ human rights behavior. Yet the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) has been successful for improving women’s rights. However, few CEDAW analyses account for the influence of reservations on state compliance with the treaty. This study develops a theoretical approach drawn from the opposability (vs. permissibility) school of reservations in international law. We argue that states ratifying CEDAW with reservations are less likely to see improvements in women’s rights than states ratifying CEDAW without reservations. We also show that states with worse women’s rights place reservations on core articles most central to the treaty’s success, while states with better women’s rights place reservations on procedural or non-core articles. Ordered logit, regression, and Heckman selection models of state-year data from 1981 to 2019 show that reservations in CEDAW are detrimental to the success of the institution.