Law Commons^™

“Time Is A-Wasting”: Making The Case For Cedaw Ratification By The United States, Rangita De Silva De Alwis, Melanne Verveer

All Faculty Scholarship

Since President Carter signed the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (the “CEDAW” or the “Convention”) on July 17, 1980, the United States has failed to ratify the Convention time and again. As one of only a handful of countries that has not ratified the CEDAW, the United States is in the same company as Sudan, Somalia, Iran, Tonga, and Palau. When CEDAW ratification stalled yet again in 2002, then-Senator Joseph Biden lamented that “[t]ime is a-wasting.”

Writing in 2002, Harold Koh, former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, bemoaned America’s …

#Metoo And The Pursuit Of Women's International Human Rights, Benedetta Faedi Duramy

Publications

IN THE PAST YEAR, high profile cases and the ensuing #MeToo movement have raised much attention on issues surrounding gender discrimination, violence against women, and sexual harassment in the workplace. In the United States, allegations of sexual assault and harassment spawned the deposition or resignation of prominent figures in the entertainment, media, dining, and business industries following the onset of the #MeToo social media movement.' In the rest of the world, many people also embraced the online crusade by sharing the hashtag millions of times or creating their own versions of it. Feminists and scholars have since attempted to keep …

Gender And Economic, Social, And Cultural Rights, Christine M. Chinkin

Book Chapters

At the time of adoption of the International Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) in 1966, the concept of gender had not entered the international arena. Relations between women and men in the allocation and enjoyment of rights were addressed through the concept of non-discrimination, inter alia on the basis of sex. The term ‘gender’ began to enter the international agenda in the 1980s, first through the global conferences on women. The World Conference on Human Rights at Vienna in 1993 continued this trend, referring to gender-based violence, gender bias, and gender-disaggregated statistics. It also called for ‘the …

"At The Hospital There Are No Human Rights": Reproductive And Sexual Rights Violations Of Women Living With Hiv In Namibia, Aziza Ahmed

Faculty Scholarship

This report documents the ongoing stigma and discrimination of women living with HIV in Namibia, building on prior findings and investigations on the subject, such as the 2008 research conducted by the International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS (ICW) and the Namibian Women’s Health Network (NWHN). The report, based upon both desk research and a field mission, examines the human rights situation related to sexual and reproductive health of women living with HIV, including the gravity and ongoing nature of forced and coerced sterilizations in Namibia. The report also provides evidence of violations of informed consent in the context …

Unsex Cedaw, Or What's Wrong With Women's Rights, Darren Rosenblum

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Part I discusses why CEDAW continues to be relevant as the primary source of international law on sex discrimination. Until the advent of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), CEDAW was the most widely-subscribed international treaty. Some of the draft language of CEDAW reflects the tension between category and identity and how "women" won the debate. Part II contrasts CEDAW with the Convention for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). It points to the identitarian focus of CEDAW as a core reason for its failures. Had CEDAW reflected a category focus, as CERD did, it would more …

Hiv And Women: Incongruent Policies, Criminal Consequences, Aziza Ahmed

Faculty Scholarship

UN Women must take an aggressive role in the standardization of laws and policies at the global and national level where their incongruence has negative and often criminal consequences for the health and lives of women and girls. This article focuses in on three such examples: opt-out testing for HIV, criminalization of vertical transmission, and the new World Health Organization guidelines on breastfeeding.

Law On The Books Vs. Law In Action: Under-Enforcement Of Morocco’S Reformed 2004 Family Law, The Moudawana, Ann M. Eisenberg

Faculty Publications

Morocco shares cultural, religious, and linguistic roots with more conservative countries in the region, yet the Moroccan government has interpreted similar traditions to yield the starkly different stance that gender equality is desirable. Morocco’s Moudawana, the 2004 legislation on family law with provisions largely derived from Islamic sources, confers unprecedented rights on Moroccan women. Part I of this Note evaluates the Moudawana in light of its break with traditional Shari’a, alongside its fidelity to other Islamic law principles in giving Moroccan women unprecedented rights. While the new Moudawana has provisions addressing inheritance, children’s rights, and assets within a marriage, this …

Rape And The Querela In Italy: False Protection Of Victim Agency, Rachel A. Van Cleave

Publications

Italian law requires rape victims to make a formal request that the state prosecute the alleged rapist. This request is called a querela and without such a request prosecution does not proceed, though there are some exceptions. In addition, the request for prosecution is irrevocable; the victim cannot withdraw her request for prosecution. Italian law has included the querela requirement for over one hundred years. It was included in the Zanardelli Code of 1889,3 the first Penal Code of unified Italy, maintained in the Rocco Code of 1930, the Penal Code of Fascist Italy, and-after a great deal of controversy-the …

Child Marriage And Guardianship In Tanzania: Robbing Girls Of Their Childhood And Infantilizing Women, Tamar Ezer, Kate Kerr, Kara Major, Aparna Polavarapu, Tina Tolentino

Articles

No abstract provided.

Lifting Our Veil Of Ignorance: Culture, Constitutionalism, And Women's Human Rights In Post-September 11 America, Catherine Powell

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

While we live in an Age of Rights, culture continues to be a major challenge to the human rights project. During the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in the 1940s and during the Cold War era, the periodic disputes that erupted over civil and political rights in contrast to economic, social and cultural rights could be read either explicitly or implicitly as a cultural debate.

Gender has figured prominently in this perceived culture clash, for example, with the Bush administration's use of Afghan women as cultural icons in need of liberation--a claim that helped justify the …

Sex, Gender, And September 11, Hilary Charlesworth, Christine M. Chinkin

Articles

The October 2001 issue of the American Journal ofInternational Law contained several editorials on the international law implications of the hijackings of September 11, 2001, and their aftermath.' In one respect these editorials resemble other writings on these events in academic and popular media: questions of sex and gender are largely overlooked.' In our view, however, concepts of sex and gender provide a valuable perspective on these devastating actions.' We use the term "sex" here to refer to issues about women as distinct biological beings from men, and the term "gender" to encompass social understandings of femininity and masculinity. Although …