Defying Convention
US Resistance to the UN Treaty on Women's Rights

This book explores why the United States has not ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

Lisa Baldez (Author)

9781107071483, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 11 August 2014

250 pages, 2 tables
23.1 x 15.2 x 2 cm, 0.54 kg

'… Baldez offers a detailed historical account of the multi-faceted arguments regarding CEDAW's ratification, and sheds much needed light on the extent to which women's rights engage competing interests and conflicting agendas domestically and internationally. Finally, by tracing the sources of deep-seated opposition to CEDAW, and illustrating that the United States' failure to ratify results in compromised human rights protections for American women, Baldez illustrates just how necessary CEDAW is as a convention to enshrine women's rights as global norms.' Wendy O'Brien, Academic Council on the United Nations System (www.acuns.org)

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) articulates what has now become a global norm. CEDAW establishes the moral, civic, and political equality of women; women's right to be free from discrimination and violence; and the responsibility of governments to take positive action to achieve these goals. The United States is not among the 187 countries that have ratified the treaty. To explain why the United States has not ratified CEDAW, this book highlights the emergence of the treaty in the context of the Cold War, the deeply partisan nature of women's rights issues in the United States, and basic disagreements about how human rights treaties work.

1. Introduction
2. A scaffolding for women's rights, 1945–70
3. Geopolitics and the drafting of CEDAW
4. An evolving global norm of women's rights
5. CEDAW impact: process, not policy
6. Why the United States has not ratified CEDAW
7. CEDAW and domestic violence law in the United States?
8. Conclusions.

Subject Areas: Human rights [JPVH], International relations [JPS], Politics & government [JP]