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248 The Natu re and Mandate of the Committee Hanna Beate Schöpp-Schilling, Germany The CEDAW Convention established the creation of a body of independent experts—the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women—to monitor its implementation through a review of States Parties’ reports. The procedural articles of the Convention describe the nature of this Committee, the characteristics of its members, their election through States Parties, and the modalities of the election process (Article 17); States Parties’ obligations to submit reports on a regular basis to the Committee for review (Article 18); the rights of the Committee to adopt its own Rules of Procedure and elect its own officers (Article 19); the Committee ’s working time (Article 20); the Committee’s reporting obligations within the UN system as well as its right to make suggestions and general recommendations (Article 21); and the role of the UN specialized agencies in the review process (Article 22). The Optional Protocol to the Convention of 1999 allows the Committee to carry out two additional monitoring functions in addition to the reviews of the States Parties’ reports: the communication and inquiry procedures, which put the Convention on an equal footing with some of the other human rights treaty bodies. Members of the Committee The Committee started out in 1982 with the full twenty-three members allotted to it according to the Convention. Committee members are nominated by their respective countries, each a State Party to the Convention . Members must be “of high moral standing and competence in the field covered by the Convention” (Article 17 [1]). Every two years, States Parties elect new or reelect previous experts for a four-year term by secret ballot from a list of candidates.1 The Convention encourages States Parties, in selecting Committee members, to consider “equitable geographical distribution” and “representation of the different forms of civilization as well as the principal legal systems” (Article 17 [1]). In the practice of the UN system, this means distribution according to “regional groups.” These were originally characterized not only by geographical but also by political factors as a result of the Cold War. Thus, while the “East- ern European States” are no longer part of a “socialist bloc,” this region still exists for election and other purposes in the UN system, and experts are nominated by States Parties from this regional group as well as from the other regional groups comprising African States, Asian States, Latin American and Caribbean States, as well as Western European and Other States (with Kiribati not being a member of any regional group). Different “forms of civilization” and “principal legal systems” refer to different stages of economic development, different political and legal systems, and different cultures. All these factors contribute to the formal and practical realization of women’s human rights. In some countries, several legal systems exist side by side and affect the implementation of the Convention. Acceptance of such political, legal, cultural, or developmental differences does not, however, allow for a relativistic view of experts in evaluating the achievements of a given State Party. Nor do experts “judge” any of these systems. The work of the Committee over the past twentyfive years has benefited decisively from members’ detailed knowledge of these differences, in particular the legal ones and their interaction. Only on this basis can the Committee do justice to the variety of States Parties, their reports, and the actual human rights situation of women under their jurisdictions. Tensions between experts from different regional groups and political , economic, and legal systems characterized work in the early years of the Committee. This situation changed with the end of the Cold War, but depending on individual experts and their life experiences, other tensions may also flare up, including those among experts from the so-called “North,” or developed, highly industrialized countries, and from the “South,” or developing and often formerly colonized countries. While there was a strong preponderance of experts from socialist States from Eastern Europe and elsewhere in the early years, due to the fact that these countries rapidly ratified the CEDAW Convention because they believed that women had already achieved equality with men in their jurisdictions, the Committee did not have any experts from the Eastern European region from 1995 until the end of 2002. While Latin American, Caribbean, and African States consistently had members on the Committee, the numbers of these members fluctuated. Some countries, however, were successful in always or almost always having a national as an expert on...

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