“Time Is A-Wasting”: Making the Case for CEDAW Ratification by the United States

RANGITA DE SILVA DE ALWIS** AND AMBASSADOR MELANNE VERVEER*** 

Since President Carter signed the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (the “CEDAW” or the “Convention”) on July 17, 1980, the United States has failed to ratify the Convention time and again. As one of only a handful of countries that has not ratified the CEDAW, the United States is in the same company as Sudan, Somalia, Iran, Tonga, and Palau. When CEDAW ratification stalled yet again in 2002, then-Senator Joseph Biden lamented that “[t]ime is a-wasting.”

Writing in 2002, Harold Koh, former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, bemoaned America’s abdication of its moral leader-ship: “From my direct experience as America’s chief human rights official, I can testify that our continuing failure to ratify CEDAW has reduced our global standing . . . hindered our ability to lead in the international human rights community . . . [and] challenge[d] our claim of moral leadership in international human rights . . . .” Today, ratifying the CEDAW would undoubtedly be an important foreign policy tool and would communicate to the global community that the United States considers dismantling all forms of discrimination to be an inalienable and universal obligation. However, we argue that the value of ratifying the CEDAW is not limited to its foreign policy implications: At a time of a mass public reckoning on equality, ratifying the Convention would also be a central vehicle for change for women in America, including minority women, to claim their rights in courts, in work-places, and in the family.

Our study is a tour de force of the CEDAW’s impetus for progressive legal changes around the world and an exegesis of its intersections along the axes of security and minority status. The language of the Convention allows each State Party to use “all appropriate measures” to implement legislation to eliminate discrimination and take “all appropriate measures, including legislation” to promote de jure and de facto equality between men and women. Although a causal link cannot always be proven, the very language of the laws of surveyed countries reflects the CEDAW Committee’s Concluding Observations and General Recommendations. 

Despite challenges to the CEDAW’s implementation and the imperfect commitments of the 189 ratifying states, the Convention stands as the central vehicle for the incorporation of women’s rights norms into national laws and practice. The Biden Administration should waste no more time in ratifying the CEDAW and joining the international community as it seeks to bring women and girls to the center of our current global recovery. As we write these words, the Taliban has taken control of Afghanistan. The United States must signal its renewed commitment to multilateralism and women’s equality by joining the global bill of rights for women.

** Rangita de Silva de Alwis is the Associate Dean of International Affairs at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and the Hillary Rodham Clinton Fellow on Gender Equity at the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, and Security. She is also a Leader in Practice at Harvard Kennedy School’s Women and Public Policy Program (2019–21); Senior Fellow of Harvard Law School’s Center on the Legal Profession; and Distinguished Advisor to U.N. Under-Secretary-General Phumzile Mlambo Ngckua, Executive Director of U.N. Women. She thanks the following for their support: Phumzile Mlambo Ngcuka, Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director U.N. Women; Martha Minow, 300th Anniversary University Professor, Harvard University; the late Deborah Rhode, Ernest W. McFarland Professor of Law, Stanford Law School; David Wilkins, Lester Kissel Professor of Law, Harvard Law School; Zeid Eid Raad Al Hussein, Former High Commissioner for Human Rights; Judge Nancy Gertner, Harvard Law School; Hina Jilani, Former Special Representative for Human Rights Defenders; Hannah Riley Bowles, faculty at Harvard Kennedy School; and Cary Coglianese, Edward B. Shils, Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania. She is grateful to Theodore Ruger, Dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, for his support. She thanks Cassandra Dula at Penn Law for her important research assistance. She is also grateful to the staff of the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, with special thanks to Matthew Dwelle, Tatum Millet, and Vineet Surapaneni for their editing assistance, and Tim Wang for his leadership in convening the Roundtable. 

*** Ambassador Melanne Verveer was appointed by President Obama as the first U.S. Ambassador on Global Women’s Issues. She is the founding Executive Director of the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, and Security. She is also the co-founder of Seneca Women. She is a recipient of several honorary degrees and awards, including the Secretary of State’s Award for Distinguished Public Service. In her White House memoirs, Hillary Rodham Clinton characterizes Ambassador Verveer as “[a] true policy wonk who loves the complexities and nuances of issues . . . [and] a key player on the president’s team, advocating for policies affecting women, human rights, legal services.”