Don't Be Deceived: Only a "Clean" CEDAW Should be Ratified (Nausa Alert)

NOW ^ | August 31 | Staff

[yoe]

On Aug. 26, Women's Equality Day, advocates for ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), called on President Barack Obama and members of the U.S. Senate to take action. The U.S. is one of very few countries -- and the only democracy -- that has not ratified the "women's treaty" since its adoption by the United Nations General Assembly in 1979. As a supposed world leader in human rights, the U.S.'s failure to have ratified this important treaty over the last 30 years belies that leadership claim. Three decades of foot-dragging and a series of unnecessary limitations placed on the treaty (should it someday be ratified) suggests that our political leadership may even be hostile to women's equality.

Well, that certainly wouldn't come as much of a surprise, would it?

The National Organization for Women supports ratification of CEDAW, but we are also very much aware of the 11 limitations that have been attached to the treaty by prior administrations and conservative senators -- limitations that would undermine key provisions. A resolution passed at our 2009 annual conference directs that NOW "vigorously advocate for ratification of CEDAW without the addition of harmful reservations, understandings and declarations" and "calls on the Justice Department to reject the [RDUs] previously under consideration"

An analysis of those restrictions, called Reservations, Declarations and Understandings (RDUs), has been prepared at our request by Martha Davis, Esq., a human rights law expert and former NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund attorney. All but one of these restrictions were found to be undesirable, objectionable or constitutionally unnecessary. …….

[yoe]

If the NOW gang had behaved responsibly during the Monica-gate debacle or even more recently stepped in and stopped the eviscerating of Sarah Palin or demand that the United Nations stop the raping of women for UN aid.....had these pathetic people done any of the above or aided women in pain and need around the world, I might feel something other than the utter contempt I feel for such a hypocritical bunch. Human Rights my foot! Conservative Senators???? What does that mean...I suspect it means the abortion on demand thingy....Keep 'em alive on Death Row but kill the unborn.....these people are dangerous.

[IronJack]

The US has not ratified this treaty because it is meaningless puffery. Women in the United States already HAVE equal rights. We don’t need to pledge that right to some super-national organization, whose own human rights record is highly suspect.