A Model for Understanding CEDAW’s Impact on Implementing Gender Equality Reforms: Lessons from Canada and India

This Article provides a model for examining the impact of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (“CEDAW”) on implementing gender equality reforms using Canada and India, two CEDAW State Parties, as case studies. It also explores the influence of heteropatriarchy, deeply-rooted cultural norms perpetuating gender inequality, on hindering CEDAW’s ratification in the United States, as well as CEDAW’s effectiveness in implementing reforms in Canada and India. The analysis showcases how non-governmental organizations (“NGOs”) in these countries have nevertheless achieved limited successes through their mobilization of CEDAW to address specific gender injustices, such as gender violence against Indigenous women and workplace sexual harassment. However, even if CEDAW facilitates a state’s enactment of reforms, the enactment may not result in the reforms’ implementation because the treaty alone cannot overcome state-sanctioned misogynistic beliefs. The research contributes to the scholarly dialogue regarding CEDAW’s effectiveness in three ways. First, this Article provides a model for understanding CEDAW’s impacts on implementing gender equality measures through a comparative analysis of such measures’ implementation in Canada and India post-treaty ratification. Second, this Article uses this comparative lens to argue that, although the United States should ratify CEDAW, its potential impact rests in its ability to advocate for gender equality reforms on which society generally agrees while avoiding controversial reforms (e.g., legalizing abortion). In so doing, the research takes the scholarly debate beyond advocating for or against the United States’ ratification of CEDAW based on the assumption that it will or will not make a difference in women’s lives. Instead, this Article argues scholars cannot address that question until they can show a state has successfully implemented a CEDAW-inspired reform. Finally, this Article aims to provide peace of mind to CEDAW’s ratification opponents in the United States by suggesting that CEDAW, if eventually ratified, will only result in reforms on which there is bi-partisan support (e.g., more support for mothers and pregnant women in the military) rather than reforms on divisive issues because of entrenched patriarchal beliefs in American society.

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