Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women

Historical Background

Equality between women and men is a basic principle of the United Nations and has been since the signing of the foundational treaty of the United Nations (the Charter of the United Nations) in 1945. The principle of equality was then strengthened and extended by a plethora of United Nations’ international documents, such as the International Bill of Human Rights (comprising the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, both of 1966). Thanks to the work of the Commission on the Status of Women, originally set up in 1946 as a subcommission of the Commission on Human Rights, many documents entirely dedicated to the enhancement of the human rights of women are coming into force, such as the Convention on the Political Rights of Women (adopted by the General Assembly in 1952); the Convention on the Nationality of Married Women (adopted by the General Assembly in 1957); the Convention on Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age for Marriage, and Registration of Marriages (adopted in 1962); and so forth.

The protection provided by these conventions was fragmented and confined to very specific and sensitive women's rights; other women's rights were intended to be protected by the United Nations’ general human rights system. In the 1960s, many feminist movements and nongovernmental organizations around the world started raising awareness of gender-based discrimination and advocated for a holistic legal instrument to tackle all forms of discrimination against women. In particular, the World Conference of the International Women's Year, convened in Mexico City in 1975 and applauded by the United Nations General Assembly for stepping forward for the advancement of women rights, encouraged the Commission on the Status of Women to draft the CEDAW in 1976. The draft was then scrutinized by the Third Committee of the General Assembly during the next three years, from 1977 to 1979, and the CEDAW was adopted by the General Assembly in 1979. On October 6, 1999, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Optional Protocol to the Convention, which entered into force on December 22, 2000, after the 10th ratification-intended to provide victims of discrimination with a complaints procedure. To date, 99 countries have ratified the Optional Protocol.

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