For March: Follow-up on CEDAW

We have an exciting opportunity to follow up on the issue of CEDAW, which is the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women, by hearing from someone who has some great experience and insight. Please join us for this unusual book club meeting!

Wednesday March 10, 7 PM

Women's Rights Book Club invites you to an informal discussion with Felice Gaer, Regents Professor at UCLA, director of the Jacob Blaustein Institute for Human Rights of American Jewish Committee, and member of the US delegation to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women under the Obama administration, among other accomplishments. During the Clinton Administration, she was a member of 9 delegations to UN Human Rights bodies, the HR Commission and the Beijing World Conference on Women and the World Conference on Human Rights.)

Her topic will be:
"Why the Obama administration should ratify CEDAW: A Guide to action"

If you would like to learn more about CEDAW, start my taking a look at some of the country reports, which signatories to the Convention have to submit, or read more about the United States' record on ratification of International human rights treaties, in this 2009 HRW report. Here is a factual tidbit, from the intro to that report:

"the US is the only country other than Somalia that has not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most widely and rapidly ratified human rights treaty in history. It is one of only seven countries-together with Iran, Nauru, Palau, Somalia, Sudan and Tonga- that has failed to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)."

If you are interested in seeing how CEDAW helps the work of HRW, you can read these HRW reports, in which HRW is keeping signatory states accountable- including Ukraine, Dominican Republic, Germany, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia, among others.

Anyone looking for background reading on CEDAW might want to see The Circle of Empowerment: 25 Years of the UN Committee on the Elim, of Discrim,. against Women, ed. Hanna Beate Schopp-Schilling.Feminist Press. It contains articles, analysis, memoirs, by members and former members of the UN Committee-- thanks to Felice for this suggestion!