Overall theme
The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) is of today ratified by 185 states. Addressing “all forms of discrimination against women” it strengthens and supplements a wide range of international and regional instruments that offer protection against discrimination on the grounds of sex, ethnicity, race, disability etc. State performance in the field of discrimination law in general and sex discrimination in particular is monitored by a series of overlapping international and regional treaty bodies that are framed by different concepts, monitored by different procedures and guided by different sources.
Women’s protection against discrimination embedded in CEDAW and other international instruments have been given domestic effect through a wide variety of constitutional and statutory regulations that in turn are safeguarded by different judicial and administrative complaint mechanisms. The way in which the gender equality and non-discrimination principle is transformed into national law has implications for its content and outreach. In practice there are great variations as to how the gender equality principle figures in existing national hierarchies of legal principles and sources.
The colloquium with experts on international and national discrimination law will explore how these variations and inconsistencies, which are closely related to the state of flux within and between different international and national jurisdictions, affect the application and interpretation of women’s protection against sex discrimination. Taking the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination against Women as starting point we want to probe into legal, political and cultural factors and forces that inform the relationship between international and national law. The main goals of the colloquium are:
1) To explore the mutual influence of the jurisprudence of the CEDAW Committee
and other international bodies such as the Human Rights Committee and the European Court of Human Rights with a view to the following overall questions:
- What are the factors that guide these bodies’ use of sources in theory and practice? What is the impact of guiding principles embedded in soft law instruments such as the gender mainstreaming principle embedded in the Vienna Declaration of Human Rights and later the Beijing Declaration? How is the work of UN special rapporteurs’ considered?
- How are national sovereignty and the scope of discretion balanced against the state obligation to take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women?
- How is unity and diversity balanced with a view to achieve substantive equality between women and men in different social, cultural, economic and political settings?
We wish to address these questions in relation to selected social and economic rights of women, such as the rights to health (including protection against violence), education and work. Within these areas we are generally interested in the mutual influence between:
- CEDAW, the CESCR and ICCPR
- CEDAW and regional instruments – the European Convention on Human Rights, the American Convention on Human Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples´ Rights, herunder the Protocol to the African Charter on the Protection of the Rights of Women.
By means of national case studies we want to focus on:
- How these rights are nationally implemented (see the selection of countries below) with regard to different groups of women (migrant women, refugee women, women belonging to majority and minority groups, different classes etc).
- Which principles, guidelines, arguments and social factors that are put forward or considered relevant by especially the CEDAW Committee in response to different circumstances and contexts. How, to what extent, and under which circumstances are cultural, social and political values and arguments considered valid with regard to women´s right to health, education and work?
2) Comparisons of the domestication of CEDAW in different jurisdictions in order to identify similarities and differences as to how CEDAW is translated and reconfigured by national legislative, administrative and judicial bodies. A related aim is to identify causes and effects of the different ways in which the non-discrimination principle is made part of national law in different legal, political and socio-cultural contexts. Through the national case studies we wish to illustrate the implications through examples showing how selected social and economic rights of women, such as the rights to health (including reproductive rights, protection against violence), education and work have been implemented and with what consequences for different groups of women (migrant women, refugee women, women belonging to majority and minority groups, different classes etc).
Towards this end we are inviting scholars to present national case studies from:
- Civil law and common law jurisdictions
- Monistic and dualist legal systems
- Post-colonial and neo-colonial states
- Secular and non-secular states
- Different state/civil society relationship
We are particularly interested in how the relationship between the right to gender equality, national sovereignty, proportionality and scope of discretion has been balanced by different state and civil society actors that have taken part in the process of incorporation and implementation. Of particular interest are the contestations that incorporation and implementation of CEDAW has given raise to in different legal, political and socio-cultural contexts. How are the involved actors shaping their arguments and what is the strength of the equal rights argument embedded in CEDAW in different contexts and settings? What are the power relations at stake and how are they affected?
Legal controversies related to the following topics are of interest:
- Choice of legal gateways. Incorporation through constitutional change, incorporation through human rights acts, piecemeal legislative incorporation, incorporation through judicial activism etc.
- CEDAW’s implications for legal and political reform.
- Use of CEDAW in court cases and discrimination tribunals.
- Integration of CEDAW in education of lawyers.
Publication
The colloquium shop will lead to a publication on the CEDAW and related instruments that can be used in the curriculum in courses on international law and international feminist jurisprudence.
Draft workshop program
The mutual influence of the CEDAW Committee and other international treaty bodies
- The relationship between CEDAW and related instruments, professor Kees Flinterman
- The relationship between CEDAW, ICCPR and the European Convention on Human Rights professor Manfred Nowak
- CEDAW, ICCPR, Protocol to the African Charter, Special Rapporturs: The case of tenure security for women. Research fellow Ingunn Ikdahl
- CEDAW and the American Convention: Professor Cecilia Bailliet
Commentators: Dr. Fareda Banda, professor Frances Raday, professor Geir Ulfstein, professor Mads Andenæs
Domestication of CEDAW – national case studies
- Finland, professor Kevat Nousiainen, Helsinki University
- Norway, professor Anne Hellum, Oslo University
- UK, professor Sandra Fredman, Oxford University
- Netherlands, professor Rikki Holtemath, University of Leiden
- Canada, Prof Lucie Lamarche, University of Ottawa
- Australia, professor Andrew Byrnes
- South Africa, professor Sandra Liebermann, Stellenbosch
- Kenya, professor Patricia Kameri-Mbote, Faculty of Law Nairobi
- Pakistan, professor Shaheen Sardar Ali, Peshawar/Warwick/Oslo University
- France, Helene.Ruiz-Fabri, Paris University
- Israel, professor Frances Raday, Hebrew University
Commentators: Dr. Fareda Banda (SOAS), professor Andreas Føllesdal, professor Beth Simmons