Protection of Women's Human Rights under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women

Abstract

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrim- ination Against Women' represents the universalist 2 response to women's human rights within the world community through a document based in liberal political theory. This article, a fem- inist interpretation of CEDAW, examines the ability of univer- salism to protect and promote women's human rights, and it also analyzes the ability of liberal equality to accomplish the realization of women's human rights. Section I contains a brief discussion of the universalism/relativism 3 debate in interna- tional human rights law. It assigns CEDAW to the universal- ism side of the debate and depicts CEDAW as a document based in liberal political theory. Section I also analyzes the differ- ences between equality and equity as theories for realizing wo- men's human rights, and discusses the various schools of feminist legal theory. Section II examines the position of women's human rights prior to the implementation of CEDAW. These rights concern the role of women in the family when family relations were treated as private associations which should not involve the legal system. Then, section II discusses CEDAW's place in in- ternational law. It examines the role of women as defined by the United Nations, the sponsor of CEDAW. This section situ- ates CEDAW within the realm of international human rights law. Section III is a feminist analysis of CEDAW. The substan- tive articles of CEDAW are arranged by general subject areas: political and civil rights; judicial and law enforcement rights; education and health care; non-governmental discrimination; customary discrimination; de-criminalization of gender; full de- velopment of women; de facto4 inequality; and systemic inequal- ity. This analysis of CEDAW inquires into who is to decide which steps are necessary for realizing women's human rights, in addition to the standards utilized for those decisions. This section highlights the androcentric foundation of CEDAW. Section IV calls for a greater inclusion of women in deciding their own fate and an equitable view of women's human rights. Currently, these rights are advanced as equality rights, mean- ing the rights of women are protected only to the extent that they can be defined in terms of the human rights of men. By viewing human rights on an equitable basis, the differences be- tween men and women can be celebrated without being cause for discrimination. This may serve to protect cultural varia- tions, which are at the heart of the relativist position and the universal right to culture.