Point/Counterpoint
Point/Counterpoint is an occasional feature of the Human Rights Brief. The purpose of this feature is to encourage meaningful, intellectual discussion on contemporary issues in human rights and humanitarian law through the presentation of two diverse, though not necessarily opposing, opinions on the subject at hand. The authors do not review each others’ pieces prior to publication. The opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect those of the Human Rights Brief, the Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, or the Washington College of Law.
In 1979, the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) at the UN Decade for Women Mid-Decade Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. According to this treaty, countries that ratify or accede to it must take all appropriate measures to ensure the full development and advancement of women in all aspects of life, including the political, educational, employment, health care, economic, social, legal, and marriage and family relations spheres. CEDAW was passed by the UN General Assembly in 1981, and as of June 18, 2002, has been signed by 97 countries, with 170 ratifications, accessions, or successions. The United States became a signatory on July 17, 1980. This past year marked the closest the United States Senate has ever come to ratifying CEDAW, when the treaty was voted favorably out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by a bipartisan vote of 12 to 7 on July 30, 2002. However, the full Senate was unable to consider the Treaty before the end of the 107th Congress, so the treaty will revert back to the committee for further action in the current Congress.
The proper citation for this article in the Human Rights Brief Volume 10, Issue 2, beginning at page 22 is: 10 No. 2 Hum. Rts. Brief 22 (2003).
