An International Human Right: Gender Equality

An lNTERNAnoNAL Human Rigktt: Gender Equality Elizabeth E Defeis As this country approaches a New World Order, international law, organizations, and norms have moved to the forefront in United States law and United States foreign policy. Not since the early days of the republic has the legitimacy of international law, both as a component of United States law and as a system that regulates condud between nations, been so widely acknowledged by both pofitidans and sdiolars. Yet, the United States is the only major democratic nation that has refused to ratify an}' of the major human rights treaties. The Convention on the Elimination of AU Forms of Discrimination Against Women, a comprehensive treaty dealing with discrimination against women, was sent to the Senate more than ten years ago for its advice and consent. Despite broad-based support for ratification from such disparate groups as the American Bar Assodation and the American Assodation of Retired Persons, the Senate has yet to ad.1 In this new age of adherence to international law and norms, it is proper that the United States demonstrate its commitment to the new international world order. Ratification is long overdue. The primacy of international law and treaties in United States jurisprudence has been recognized since the end of the eighteenth century. The United States Constitution of 1787 affirmed that "treaties ... shall be the supreme law of the land" and gave Congress authority 'To define and punish... Offenses against the Law of Nations." In one of the earliest cases to come before the OS. Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Marshall applied international law to resolve a pending dispute.2 In 1900, the Supreme Court stated: International Law is part of our law and must be ascertained and administered by the courts of justice of appropriate jurisdiction.3 FoUowing World War I, President Woodrow Wilson lobbied for United States participation in international affairs through membership in both the League of Nations and the Permanent Court of International Justice.4 Instead, this was rejerted by the Senate and the United States entered into a period of political isolationism, which had as one of its major components rejection of international mechanisms that would bind the United States and subjert it to scrutiny by international bodies. The atrodties and human rights violations of World War Πunderscored the need for an international body and international cooperation to ensure that such violations not occur again; they served as a catalyst for the acceptance of the concept of © 1991 Journal of Women's History, Vol. 3 No. ι (Spring) 1991 International Trends: Defeb 91 international human rights.5 The United States, through its representatives, primarily in the person of Eleanor Roosevelt, was one of the authors of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Covenant on Political and Civil Rights, and the Covenant on Political and Sodal Rights.6 Unfortunately, the premise of mutual cooperation among nations upon which the United Nations was founded was undermined almost immediately with the emergence of the Cold War and the increasing tide of conservatism that swept the nation in the 1950s. The status of the United Nations in the United States declined and adherence to international treaties and particularly human rights treaties was rejerted both by politicians and by the influential legal organizations such as the American Bar Assodation.7 In the 1970s, the U.S. Congress began to address the issue of gross violations of human rights abroad and enarted legislation that has permitted or required linking human rights considerations to foreign aid, such as security assistance, economic assistance, and participation in international finandal institutions.8 The State Department was required to submit detaüed human rights reports on aU countries that received such aid. It was not until the Carter adrninistration that ratification of human rights treaties was realisticaUy urged and that adherence to human rights became a cornerstone of United States foreign policy. This trend, halted during the Reagan years when references to international law or human rights became increasingly scarce, coUapsed with the withdrawal of the United States from the compulsory jurisdiction of the World Court in 1985.9 Once again, however, we are being urged to partidpate in a "New World Order" founded upon...