Arabs spring for U.S. support of CEDAW?

By Timothy Herrmann | November 16, 2011

Campaigners for CEDAW ratification in the U.S. are using Arab Spring inspired rhetoric to secure new support for their initiative. They claim that US ratification of CEDAW would not only provide meaningful support to women’s rights activists living under these newly formed governments but that it would also encourage governments to implement and institutionalize the reforms called for in the convention. Though all of the governments now going through transition as the result of the Arab spring have ratified the convention, few support the treaties provisions in practice.

Staunch advocates of U.S. CEDAW ratification expressed their opinions at a recent Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee hearing on “Women and the Arab spring” held on Nov. 2nd. However, instead of focusing on women and the Arab Spring, CEDAW adovates used their interventions as an opportunity for activism. In one of their statements Mahnaz Afkhami, president of Women’s Leading Partnership, argued that “our partners in the region have made clear to us that U.S. ratification of CEDAW would reinforce their own efforts to fully institutionalize and implement the treaty provisions for gender equality within their national legislation and constitutional reforms.” Which “partners” and “countries” she is referencing remain unclear. In actuality, a strong case could easily be made that the Islamist ruling parties currently in power in Tunisia, Libya and that are likely to be elected in Egypt will have no interest in following the US’s lead on CEDAW let alone its foreign policy on human rights more broadly.

For now, the claim that the women involved in the Arab Spring would somehow benefit from the U.S. ratification of CEDAW rings hollow. Far more likely is the chance that the Arab Spring is being hijacked by special interest groups looking out for themselves rather than for women involved in the Arab spring.

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