Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women

The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) is an international treaty adopted in 1979 by the United Nations General Assembly.

Described as an international bill of rights for women, it was instituted on 3 September 1981 and has been ratified by 189 states. Over fifty countries that have ratified the convention have done so subject to certain declarations, reservations, and objections, including 38 countries who rejected the enforcement article 29, which addresses means of settlement for disputes concerning the interpretation or application of the convention. Australia's declaration noted the limitations on central government power resulting from its federal constitutional system. The United States and Palau have signed, but not ratified the treaty. The Holy See, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, and Tonga are not signatories to CEDAW.

The CEDAW Chairperson position is currently held by Hilary Gbedemah.

The convention

Summary

The convention has a similar format to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, "both with regard to the scope of its substantive obligations and its international monitoring mechanisms".

Part I (Articles 1–6) focuses on non-discrimination, sex stereotypes, and sex trafficking.
Part II (Articles 7–9) outlines women's rights in the public sphere with an emphasis on political life, representation, and rights to nationality.
Part III (Articles 10–14) describes the economic and social rights of women, particularly focusing on education, employment, and health. Part III also includes special protections for rural women and the problems they face.
Part IV (Article 15 and 16) outlines women's right to equality in marriage and family life along with the right to equality before the law.
Part V (Articles 17–22) establishes the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women as well as the states parties' reporting procedure.
Part VI (Articles 23–30) describes the effects of the convention on other treaties, the commitment of the states parties and the administration of the convention.

Core provisions

Article 1 defines discrimination against women in the following terms:

Articles 25 – 30 (Administration of CEDAW)

These articles describe the general administrative procedures concerning enforcement of CEDAW, ratification and entering reservations of concerned states.

The 10th anniversary of Resolution 1325 in October 2010 highlighted the increasing demand for accountability to UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security. Many expressed concern about the fact that only 22 Member States out of 192 have adopted national action plans. Women are still underrepresented, if not totally absent, in most official peace negotiations and sexual violence in peacetime and in conflict continue to increase.

These realities emphasized the need to use external legal mechanisms to strengthen the implementation of SCR 1325, particularly CEDAW. The well-established mechanisms of CEDAW – the Member States compliance report and the civil society shadow reporting process were cited as possible instruments to ensure accountability.

Several regional and international meetings including the High Level Seminar "1325 in 2020: Looking Forward...Looking Back", organized by the African Center for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes, and the "Stockholm International Conference 10 years with 1325 – What now?" called for the use of CEDAW to improve 1325 implementation.

Intersection between SCR 1325 and CEDAW

While CEDAW and UN Security Council Resolutions 1325 and 1820 on Women, Peace and Security are important international instruments on their own, there is also an intersection among the three standards that can be used to enhance their implementation and impact.

Resolutions 1325 and 1820 broaden the scope of CEDAW application by clarifying its relevance to all parties in conflict, whereas CEDAW provides concrete strategic guidance for actions to be taken on the broad commitments outlined in the two Resolutions.

CEDAW is a global human rights treaty that should be incorporated into national law as the highest standard for women's rights. It requires the UN Member States that have ratified it (185 to date) to set in place mechanisms to fully realize women's rights.

Resolution 1325 is an international law unanimously adopted by the Security Council that mandates the UN Member States to engage women in all aspects of peacebuilding including ensuring women's participation on all levels of decision–making on peace and security issues.

Resolution 1820 links sexual violence as a tactic of war with the maintenance of international peace and security. It also demands a comprehensive report from the UN Secretary-General on implementation and strategies for improving information flow to the Security Council; and the adoption of concrete protection and prevention measures to end sexual violence.

Resolutions 1325 and 1820, and CEDAW share the following agenda on women's human rights and gender equality:

Members and ratification

The six UN member states that have not ratified or acceded to the convention are Iran, Palau, Somalia, Sudan, Tonga, and the United States.

The one UN non-member state that had not acceded to the convention is the Holy See/Vatican City.

The Republic of China (Taiwan) in 2007 has also ratified the treaty in its legislature, but is unrecognized by the United Nations and is a party to the treaty only unofficially.

The latest state to have acceded the convention was South Sudan on 30 April 2015. Within the United States, over 70 cities and local governments have adopted CEDAW ordinances or resolutions. The adoption of these measures has spawned a movement for local CEDAW implementation in the U.S.

Reservations

Many reservations have been entered against certain articles of the convention. There are also some reservations that are not specific to an article within the convention but rather a general reservation to all aspects of the convention that would violate a stated principle. For example, Mauritania made a reservation stating it approved the convention "in each and every one of its parts which are not contrary to Islamic Sharia."

Article 28 of the convention states that "a reservation incompatible with the object and purpose of the present convention shall not be permitted." Specifically, many Nordic states parties were concerned that some of the reservations were "undermining the integrity of the text." Over the years, some states parties have withdrawn their reservations.

As of May 2015, sixty-two states parties have entered reservations against some part of the convention. Twenty-four states parties have entered objections to at least one of these reservations. which also established the rules, purpose, and operating procedures of the committee. Throughout its years of operation the committee has held multiple sessions to ensure the rules outlined in the CEDAW are being followed. Over time the practices of the committee have evolved due to an increased focus on women's rights issues.

History of the committee

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women was formed on 3 September 1981 after the CEDAW received the 20 ratifications required for it to enter into force. Article 17 of the CEDAW established the committee in order to ensure that the provisions of the CEDAW were followed by the countries that had signed and agreed to be bound by it. Other officers elected were three vice-chairpersons: M. Caron of Canada, Z. Ilic of Yugoslavia and L. Mukayiranga of Rwanda. The final officer elected was D. P. Bernard of Guyana as rapporteur of the committee. During this session, the committee also unanimously approved to adopt its rules of procedure.

The committee is allowed to hold as many meetings as are required to perform their duties effectively, with the states party to the CEDAW and the Secretary-General of the United Nations authorizing the number of regular sessions held. The first thirty-nine sessions were held at the United Nations headquarters building in New York City, with the fortieth and subsequent sessions held at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. The committee also holds pre-sessional work groups to discuss the issues and questions that the committee should deal with during the following session.

Reports

thumb|[[UN Headquarters]]

Under article 18 of the CEDAW states must report to the committee on the progress they have made in implementing the CEDAW within their state. Initial reports discussing the current picture of discrimination against women in the reporting states are required to specifically deal with each article of the CEDAW, and consist of no more than one-hundred pages. The recommendations issued by the committee in its first decade were short and dealt mainly with the content of states' reports and reservations to the convention.

General Recommendation No. 2 (1987) discusses "reporting guidelines."
General Recommendation No. 26 (2008) discusses "women migrant workers."
General Recommendation No. 27 (2010) discusses "older women and protection of their human rights."
General Recommendation No. 28 (2010) discusses "the core obligations of states parties under Article 2." Here, the Committee states that reservations to Article 2 are incompatible with the object and purpose of the convention and therefore impermissible under Article 28.
General Recommendation No. 30 (2013) discusses "women in conflict prevention, conflict and post-conflict situations." Here, the Committee said states parties are obliged to uphold women's rights before, during, and after conflict when they are directly involved in fighting, and/or are providing peacekeeping troops or donor assistance for conflict prevention, humanitarian aid or post-conflict reconstruction. The committee also stated that ratifying states should exercise due diligence in ensuring that non-state actors, such as armed groups and private security contractors, be held accountable for crimes against women. For the first time, the Committee joined with the Committee on the Rights of the Child to release a comprehensive interpretation of the obligations of States to prevent and eliminate harmful practices done to women and girls.
General Recommendation No. 32 (2014) discusses "gender-related dimensions of refugee status, asylum, nationality and statelessness of women."

Currently the committee is working on the General Recommendation Trafficking in women and girls in the context of global migration.

Changes in the committee

For the first ten years the committee operated significantly differently from now. The only form of censure given to the committee by the CEDAW was their general recommendations and concluding comments following a report. Due to the emergence of the Global Campaign for Women's Human Rights in 1991 more attention was given to the CEDAW, reviving the committee. The members are nominated by their national governments and elected through a secret ballot by states party to the convention.

Officers of the Committee

The officers of the committee are composed of a chairperson, three vice-chairpersons and a rapporteur. Officers of the committee are nominated by another member of the committee, as opposed to a government which nominates members for the committee.

! Name !! Nationality !! Term Expires

| Brenda Akia (Rapporteur) || || 2026

| Hiroko Akizuki || || 2026

| Hamida Al-Shukairi || || 2028

| Violet Eudine Barriteau || || 2028

| Rangita de Silva de Alwis || || 2026

| Corinne Dettmeijer-Vermeulen (Vice-Chair) || || 2028

| Nada Moustafa Fathi Draz || || 2026

| Esther Eghobamien-Mshelia || || 2026

| Yamila González Ferrer || || 2026

| Daphna Hacker || || 2026

| Nahla Haidar (Chair) || || 2028

| Madina Jarbussynova || ||2028

| Marianne Mikko (Vice-Chair) || || 2026

| Hong Mu || || 2028

| Ana Peláez Narváez || || 2026

| Jelena Pia-Comella || || 2028

| Bandana Rana || || 2028

| Rhoda Reddock (Vice-Chair) || || 2026

| Elgun Safarov || || 2026

| Erika Schläppi || || 2028

| Natasha Stott Despoja || || 2028

| Genoveva Tisheva || || 2026

| Patsili Toldeo Vásquez || || 2028

Optional Protocol

The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women is a side-agreement to the convention which allows its parties to recognise the competence of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women to consider complaints from individuals.

The Optional Protocol was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 6 October 1999 and entered into force on 22 December 2000. it has 80 signatories and 115 parties.

Controversy

Controversy around CEDAW comes from two opposite directions: social and religious conservatives which claim that CEDAW is seeking to impose a liberal, progressive, feminist standard on countries, in detriment of traditional values; and radical feminists, who are skeptical of the power, or even desire, of CEDAW to radically transform societies and truly liberate women, and claim that CEDAW adheres to a form of weak liberal feminism similar to other mainstream organizations. They also claim that UN members cannot create goals which represent values of the poor, conservative, religious, or weak, because few, if any, UN officials/staff are actually from this group for which they claim to represent.

In 2016, the candidate nominated from the Nordic countries, Gunnar Bergby, caused controversy, after the Norwegian government had used "radical gender quotas" to nominate him over a 'more qualified' woman, CEDAW expert Anne Hellum whose candidacy had been supported by all the large women's rights NGOs and the research environments in women's law in the Nordic countries as well as the outgoing Nordic committee member Niklas Bruun; as a result, Bergby's nomination was 'widely condemned' by women's rights NGOs and experts in all the Nordic countries. Bergby was the third man in a row from the Nordic countries nominated to the committee while no women had been nominated from the Nordic countries since the 1990s; the Norwegian Foreign Ministry told the women's rights NGOs that they refused to nominate a woman as a matter of principle because they wanted a man for the third time due to a need for "men's voices". Law professor at the University of Oslo Cecilia Bailliet stated that the women's rights NGOs in the Nordic countries were "shocked" over the nomination of Bergby over a "more qualified" woman and that Norway had "violated its commitments to gender equality as well as Norwegian law".

In 2019, Andorran human rights activist Vanessa Mendoza Cortés presented a case to CEDAW for the decriminalisation of abortion in Andorra and was subsequently taken to court for defamation by the government of Andorra.

In 2024, Reem Alsalem, was asked to provide input to a legal case in the form of a position paper to the Australian Human Rights Commission. Alsalem's paper discussed the definition of "woman" in international human rights treaties, particularly CEDAW. Alsalem argues that while CEDAW does not explicitly define "woman", it refers to biological females and that sex and sex-based discrimination in that context is understood as a biological category. The outcome of the case is viewed as one of great significance to advocates of female-only services and spaces in Australia, and for all countries around the world where CEDAW has been ratified.

In 2024, the committee issued a corrective recommendation regarding the exclusion of women from the line of succession in Japan’s imperial system This system, with a documented history of over 1,500 years, occasionally allowed women from the imperial family to ascend the throne. However, if these women married men outside the imperial family, their sons—who would carry a non-imperial Y chromosome—were not eligible for succession. Under the Imperial Household Law, enacted in 1889, female members of Imperial family were officially excluded from the succession line.

Although the authority of the emperor as the highest priest of Shinto was revoked by the United Nations (the Allied Powers) following Japan’s defeat in World War II in 1945, this new recommendation was perceived by the Japanese public as further infringement on religious dogma and interference in domestic affairs by the UN, causing widespread shock. Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs swiftly lodged a strong protest with the committee, demanding the UN recommendation be retracted.

In January 2025, following the committee's refusal to retract, the Government of Japan notified that the voluntary contribution to

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights would not be allocated to the committee.

The recommendation was prompted by reports to the UN from groups such as the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, known for its leftist and anti-imperial stances. This move is seen as part of political maneuvering by certain political factions within Japan such as Japanese Communist Party.

References

External links

CEDAW site
Convention text
List of parties
Introductory note by Dubravka Šimonović, procedural history note and audiovisual material on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women in the Historic Archives of the United Nations Audiovisual Library of International Law
Kreutzer, Willow (2025). "Introducing the CEDAW ROCS dataset: A Dataset on the United Nations Treaty the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women––Reservations and Objections of Committed States". Foreign Policy Analysis. 21 (1)