Article 17(1) of the CEDAW
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/03
Article 17
1. For the purpose of considering the progress made in the implementation of the present Convention, there shall be established a Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (hereinafter referred to as the Committee) consisting, at the time of entry into force of the Convention, of eighteen and, after ratification of or accession to the Convention by the thirty-fifth State Party, of twenty-three experts of high moral standing and competence in the field covered by the Convention. The experts shall be elected by States Parties from among their nationals and shall serve in their personal capacity, consideration being given to equitable geographical distribution and to the representation of the different forms of civilization as well as the principal legal systems.
Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979)
In the battle for the equality of the sexes, the fight for number five on the Sustainable Development Goals listing, Gender Equality, remains a long-term one. There remains obvious pushback from the standard players in the communal, national, and international scene from the schools and churches, to the state and the legal system, to the international alliances hell-bent on the oppression of women.
It amounts to the consistent and long-term story of the world. One of the documents dealing with the violation of women’s rights is the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) or the Convention. The Convention represents a documented bulwark of the rights inhering in women for being women, for being human beings.
As noted, the purpose is to implement the document’s stipulated rights and then work to make appropriate progress in a variety of domains. One of these includes the formation of the Committee stated in the quotation at the top. The Committee comes with 23 experts. Those deemed of high ethical character or moral virtue.
The bases for these rights and values come in movements making consensuses and then codifying these in documents. Then the rights become implemented or enforced through some formal recognition and representation. The Committee forms part of this. Those in the fields relevant to the Convention will also be competent. Not a trivial part of the implementation of the rights.
The members of this Committee come from the “States Parties” or nation-states. They come from among the nationals and then work within a service orientation. They are to be of competence, high moral standing, and of service to the ideals of the Convention. The difficulties come in the last portions of the statement about the geographical distribution and the representation of the different civilizations.
Granted, we are not talking about Byzantium and Roman; however, we are speaking of the different cultures that come with religious and ethnic heritage in many countries. The reason being the religious and ethnic histories of many countries of the world. Inevitably, there will be a difference in the emphasis of the values and so morals stipulated within the Convention.
Nonetheless, the major emphasis for the people of the world is the representation in a professional capacity on the Committee to be able to enforce the Convention. The equal rights for women around the world can be thought of, in a way, of upstream and downstream.
The upstream is at the top of the mountain connected to the lake that receives rainfall continually. It is the source of the ideals and the stipulations of the highest statements of morality insofar as we are able to determine them. Then there is the downstream that ends in the tributaries, rivers, smaller lakes, and the ocean, where the different cultures, civilizations, religions, and languages come to receive and in a way interpret those feeds of water into them.
The decisions about how best to contextualize and implement the rights become the basis for the independence of the representatives but the fundamental unity exists from the same source of ideals found in the Convention, where the Committee exists in a disparate fashion at each of the downstream locations.
It is in this sense that we can see the greater ability of women of the world to have equality with men through the implementation especially in the legal systems of these downstream locations, civilizations. The proper implementation may not happen overnight but can happen in due course because of the consistent efforts of formal activists with institutional status seen in the Committee for the Convention and informally on the ground, in the social and family life, and sometimes on the streets of the major city centers.
–One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3 and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (1993).
- Beijing Declaration(1995).
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
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