The CEDAW Effect: International Law's Impact on Women's Rights

Complying with Human Rights

“…Similarly, Cole (2012), Hill (2010), Landman (2005a), andNeumayer (2005) analyze the effect of different United Nations' human rights conventions such as the ICCPR and its First Optional Protocol; the CAT, including Articles 21 and 22; and the Covenant on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Englehart and Miller (2014) find a positive effect of ratifications of the CEDAW on women's rights. Moreover, Hathaway (2002) and Neumayer (2005) include several regional treaties, among them the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the American Convention of Human Rights, as well as the African Charter on Human Rights.…”

Cedaw and the Security Council: Enhancing Women's Rights in Conflict

“…Indeed, in their comparative study of the relative efficacy of human rights treaties, Englehart and Miller concluded that the Convention was even more effective than its counterparts in achieving a statistically significant and positive effect on human rights, what they termed 'the CEDAW effect'. 113 The most consistent finding across this scholarship is that the CEDAW Committee's activities are effective domestically where they connect with local reform constituencies, in particular women's civil society. 114 In the most wide-reaching and academically significant of such studies, Beth Simmons concludes that human rights treaties' impacts lie less in their direct relationship with State parties, but rather in the mobilizing framework that they offer to domestic reform constituencies.…”

How do international norms matter? The impact of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women in Italy

“…The impact of the CEDAW in Italy: an empirical assessment Only recently scholars have focussed on the CEDAW as a potential instrument for social and political change at a national level (Zwingel, 2005), and feminist and non-feminist IR scholarship started to investigate the impact of the CEDAW on states. Among this growing literature on CEDAW implementation we can find case studies (Pakistan in Weiss, 2003; the United States as a case of non-signatory state in Baldez, 2014), comparative studies of two different domestic contexts (Finland and Chile in Zwingel, 2016; Japan and Turkey in Mello and Strausz, 2011) or a group of states (McPhedran et al, 2000;Byrnes and Freeman, 2012;Hellum and Aasen, 2013), or large-scale studies (Den Boer, 2008;Simmons, 2009;Englehart and Miller, 2014), including western and non-western countries.…”