Like CEDAW, passing ERA is UP TO ALLLL OF US

Women's Rights Treaty [sic, CEDAW] Going Nowhere Fast in Senate
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By Regina Varolli
WeNews correspondent
Friday, July 16, 2010

Women's rights activists are trying to push CEDAW, the major U.N.
women's rights treaty, out of a Senate committee where it's been stuck
for decades and up for a vote on ratification. "Call Senator John
Kerry," urges U.S. lawmaker Caroline Maloney.

NEW YORK (WOMENSENEWS)--U.S. ratification of an international treaty
to protect women's rights has been held up in the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee for three decades, a situation women's activists
would like to change during the Obama administration.

Those who have battled for or resisted the treaty know it as CEDAW,
shorthand for the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women.

"Contact the office of Senator John Kerry," U.S.
Congresswoman Caroline Maloney, a Democrat from New York, urged a
recent gathering here of ant-violence activists. "As the chair of
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he needs to hear from you.
Write to Senator Kerry, tell him that we want the U.S. in CEDAW
now."

Maloney, addressing a recent event organized by UNIFEM, the United
Nations Development Fund for Women and the National Council for
Research on Women, noted that under the Carter administration the
United States signed onto the treaty in July 1980, a few months after
it was first opened for signatures at U.N. headquarters.

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"With powerful women in the current administration, namely
Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice, the U.S. is at an optimal time for
ratification of CEDAW," Maloney told the crowd.

The only centralized pro-ratification effort in the United States is
the CEDAW Task Force of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human
Rights, a Washington-based group that came together in the past year.
It is a politically diverse coalition of over 140 organizations,
including the American Bar Association, The United Methodist
Church-General Board of Church and Society, Presbyterian Church USA
and Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

The Obama administration and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have
expressed what June Zeitlin, director of the CEDAW Education Project,
called "strong support" for the ratification of the treaty.
However, Zeitlin's group is heightening its call for Obama to
"send a strong and urgent signal to the Senate that ratification
of CEDAW is vital."

"It was important to formerly organize ourselves into the Task
Force to take advantage of the opportunity of support from the new
administration," Zeitlin told Women's eNews. "We're working
to gain enough support for a vote this year."

Laying the Groundwork for Support

"We look to advocacy groups to take the lead on laying the
groundwork for when the political conditions are right," a staff
member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who asked not to be
quoted by name, told Women's eNews. "It was clear the advocacy
element hadn't really gotten underway yet. There hadn't been good grassroots campaigning for a while. But the CEDAW Task Force of The Leadership Conference has taken over more strongly in recent
times."

The staffer said that for a "big controversial, multilateral
treaty to move through the Senate, there needs to be an enormous
amount of White House support. While there have been statements from
the administration--especially early on from Secretary Clinton and
Susan Rice--the White House certainly has not pushed this in the same
way, for example, as they're currently pushing the START treaty
(Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia), where they've been very
aggressive in saying they really want Senate movement during this
Congress. They haven't approached CEDAW in the same way, and that also
sends a signal to the Senate."

U.S. ratification requires 67 votes in the Senate, posing a formidable
political challenge, said Ellen Chesler, director of the Eleanor
Roosevelt Initiative on Women and Public Policy at New York's Hunter
College.

"The right wing is holding the U.S. back from ratifying
CEDAW," Chesler said. "It has become one of the whipping
boys of conservatives because it talks about reproductive rights and
it holds countries accountable for the quality of their reproductive
health services."

Chesler described CEDAW as setting a benchmark for litigation
affecting women--for writing civil, case and constitutional law--in
every country in the world that is working to change the status of
women.



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SUMMARY of CEDAW

"Women all over the world use CEDAW to hold their governments
accountable for changes in law and public policy. We ought to be a
part of that process in the U.S.," she said.

Reviews After Ratification

CEDAW and its committee hold no powers of enforcement over countries.
But countries that ratify it are legally bound to abide by its
provisions. Countries are also required to submit a report on the
status of women to the committee for review one year after
ratification and then at least every four years.

The latest review session--No. 46--began July 12 at U.N. headquarters
in New York City and ends on July 30. Reports from the following
countries are being examined: Turkey, Russia, Albania, Papua New
Guinea, Australia, Argentina, Fiji and India.

CEDAW was drafted by the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women
following the World Conference of the International Women's Year held
in Mexico City in 1975. The U.N. General Assembly adopted the
Convention in 1979.

Among U.N. member states 186 countries have ratified CEDAW. The United
States remains one of only seven that have not. The other six are
Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Nauru, Palau and Tonga.

CEDAW is the only international human rights treaty that specifically
affirms women's reproductive rights.

It also requires countries to uphold women's rights in political
representation, divorce, domestic violence and other areas that can
stoke the ire of social conservatives.

The principle of national sovereignty also inhibits U.S. ratification,
said Chesler. The United States is historically leery of handing over
power to any outside source or even to looking outward for ideas, she
said.

"There are many conservatives who not only don't like the issue
of women's rights, but also there's many people on both sides who
don't like the idea of the U.S. giving up sovereignty and being
obligated to answer to another, higher authority," Chesler said.