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Introduction and Acknowledgments
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I ntr od uct ion and Acknowledgments Ha nna Be ate Schöpp-Schilling, germany C ees Flinterman, the netherlands This book tells a story of success. It celebrates twenty-five years of the work and achievements of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (the Committee) in monitoring the implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (the Convention), the most important international human rights treaty for women. As of December 2006, 185 member States of the United Nations were States Parties to the CEDAW Convention. Their efforts to implement the Convention are scrutinized by the Committee on a regular basis through various procedures. The CEDAW Committee—then consisting of twenty-two women and one man—met for the first time in Vienna in October 1982. At that time, those few who knew about the Convention and its Committee had low expectations for it. The many reasons for this are fully illustrated in this book’s essays and personal reflections by current and former members of the Committee and UN staff connected with it, which describe various obstacles of a conceptual, political, organizational, and technical nature to its work. These obstacles had been—knowingly or unknowingly—put in place by member States of the United Nations, by States Parties to the Convention, by the organizational culture of the United Nations, and by Committee members themselves, and they have impeded the Committee ’s work in allowing women to exercise and enjoy their human rights on an equal basis with men. The contributors to this book also describe the story of how many of these obstacles have been overcome since 1982 and of the patient contributions of many, including international and national women’s human rights organizations, to this goal. Today, the CEDAW Committee is considered a vital and essential part of the UN human rights treaty bodies system. A celebration of such success has not blinded the Committee to existing and newly emerging challenges. A number of contributions identify such issues and formulate recommendations for overcoming them, which hopefully will guide the Committee in its future work. One aspect of the twenty-five-year-long history ends in 2007, since the Committee will no longer be serviced by the UN Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW) in New York. Starting in 2008, the Committee—like all other human rights treaty bodies—will be serviced by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Geneva. Thus, this book is also a grateful tribute to the support of DAW and its staff, which grew in intensity and excellence over the years. At the same time the book is also a gift to the OHCHR for taking over this responsibility. The book introduces readers to examples of various forms of discrimination against women, as experienced in all regions of the world and which the Committee—in its constructive dialogue with States Parties— tries to make them understand and eliminate. Beyond the Committee’s own work, the book also recounts the efforts of women and men who have worked in a context of multicausal influences, e.g. in a variety of international, regional and national institutions, human rights and women ’s movements, forums and conferences, to make the legal provisions of the Convention a reality for women worldwide. Like Committee members these activists and officials are also committed to the achievement of substantive equality for women with men and are convinced that only through the achievement of this goal can peace and sustainable development be achieved around the globe. The original concept of the book included all relevant articles and aspects of the CEDAW Convention as well as all facets of the work of its Committee. The personal interests of current and former members in certain topics as well as the very nature of each expert’s unique perception of the Convention and its Committee moved the book slightly off that course. Moreover, some views expressed in this volume do not necessarily reflect those of its editors. Still, the book treats most of the important topics arising from the Convention, its Committee, and global and specific realities of women’s lives, while other aspects have been covered as much as possible in introductory essays. For ease of referencing, the text of the Convention and its Optional Protocol have been included, while in the interest of providing a book of a modest size, the general recommendations of the Committee are only...