CEDAW and Global Feminism – Good Reasons for a Sober Friendship

CEDAW is among the oldest international institutions alive that focus on women’s rights. Over time, it has attracted different types of feminist assessment: Celebration as a milestone for women at the time of the Convention’s adoption; disappointment about the weakness and invisibility of the mechanism; discovery as an anchor for transnational women’s activism; criticism of the Convention’s outdated normative focus on women rather than on gender as a power relation; and defense against anti-feminist rejection of the Convention as being “radically feminist” and not representative for the world’s women. I suggest that CEDAW’s most important function is to provide a continuous mechanism of scrutiny of state practice in regard to women’s rights. Yet to fulfil this function adequately, the CEDAW Committee depends on support as well as critical feedback from feminists around the world. I further argue that studying these dynamics in regard to a long-established institution such as CEDAW will provide strategic insights for more recently created gender equality mechanisms.