Article 19
1. The Committee shall adopt its own rules of procedure.
2. The Committee shall elect its officers for a term of two years.
Article 20
1. The Committee shall normally meet for a period of not more than two weeks annually in order to consider the reports submitted in accordance with article 18 of the present Convention.
2. The meetings of the Committee shall normally be held at United Nations Headquarters or at any other convenient place as determined by the Committee. (amendment, status of ratification)
Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979)
Equality of the sexes provides a firmer foundation than others for an instantiation of the Golden Rule with an expansion of the moral sphere to the other sex or gender if preferred. One of the interesting or intriguing aspects of the Convention arose in the midst of reading and reflecting on it, as and before I write these articles.
Some of them amount to the operations of the Convention and so should not make too many individuals bat an eye; however, sometimes, it does become a catalyst for further thought. One of those was Article 19.
It states that the Committee, for the Convention, will adopts its own rules of procedure and then elect its officers for a term of two years. The officers for a term of two years did not surprise me. But the own rules of procedure part did shock me.
When I worked for the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations on committees for the Athabasca University Student Union, there were some general procedures for the operations of the committees and the events in the deliberation of the important points of dialogue among the young leaders present.
The noteworthy things also come in competitions including the World Model United Nations. These events have their own rules of operation standardized along the lines of others. Most of these types of things follow Robert’s Rules of Order.
But the notion of adopting an organization’s own rules of procedure seems interesting and worth pursuing as a point of inquiry. I do not know the reason, nor do I want to pretend; nonetheless, the autonomy of the CEDAW committee seems a valuable asset in the work towards the greater gender equality. The second part of Article 19 simply speaks to term limits.
Article 20(2) sets a limit on the length of time the members of the committee may meet. These ones may only meet for two weeks or under per annum. These become the basis for deliberation and, of course, due process and scrutiny of the reports submitted to the Committee.
The Convention does speak on this in Article 18. Article 20(2) stipulates that the meetings must be held in the United Nations Headquarters or another convenient place determined by the elected representatives of the Convention, or the Committee.
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- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3 and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (1993).
- Beijing Declaration(1995).
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
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Photo by Laercio Cavalcanti on Unsplash