Because of the United States’ minimal domestic engagement with human rights, several subnational initiatives, including the Cities for CEDAW campaign, have formed to infuse human rights into local policy making. Analyzing Miami-Dade County as one locale within the Cities for CEDAW network, this article asks what happens to human rights when they are turned into urban policies. Drawing on literature theorizing the complexities of urban human rights activism and using an interpretivist framework of analysis, the article reconstructs local context features and practices promoting gender equality through the countywide CEDAW ordinance. It develops a narrative based on expert interviews and finds an unusual actor constellation in which a local officeholder led the way rather than community activists. The practices identified work within institutional constraints and highlight data collection to support informed gender policy making. The findings lead to the conclusion that both activists and scholars should think beyond the dynamics of policy formulation and more explicitly about the complexities of implementation.

In 2022, the CEDAW Committee issued an Individual Communication concerning Rosanna Flamer-Caldera, a lesbian woman, human rights defender, and Executive Director of the only organization in Sri Lanka advocating for the rights of the entire lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex community. To date, the CEDAW Committee has received extensive criticisms concerning its neglect of women from diverse gender identities and sexual orientations. In this Communication, the Committee found that Sri Lanka's criminalization of consensual same-sex relations among women violates Articles 2, 5, 15, and 16 of the Convention. Importantly, the Committee makes clear that non-heterosexual relations fall within the right to marriage and family relations, enshrined in the Convention. With numerous States Parties in the region retaining criminalization, this article analyses the implications of this decision for States Parties in Asia and grapples with the question, “Is this Communication ground-breaking?” and if so, how.

During the 20th century, society’s view on sexualities has undergone a severe paradigm shift. While moving away from ideas of decency and bawdiness to evaluate legitimate sexuality, concepts of autonomy and consent gained importance. This transformation is also challenging the law.1 With the broad acceptance of various forms of sexual behavior and sexual orientation, legal regulation based on morality and ethics is outdated. Recent debates on law and sexualities focus on sexual autonomy and its conditions. This is shown especially by the legal debate on sexual violence and criminal law.2 But the right to sexual autonomy does not only require adequate protection against sexual violence. As a human right, it obliges State Parties to Human Rights Treaties such as the European Convention on Human Rights and the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women to respect, protect, and fulfill sexual autonomy. This includes the guarantee of freedom from sexual violence, coercion and discrimination, as well as control over one’s own body and over the involvement in sexual interactions with others. In order to ensure the different components of sexual autonomy, sexual education and reliable access to information and medical services are necessary. This paper presents an approach concerning the multifaceted dimensions of sexual autonomy through a human rights lens.

Widespread adoption of the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) represents a puzzle. It cannot be described as serving the interests of any state as understood in conventional theories of international relations because it commits countries to radical social change. Yet all but six UN member states have ratified it. We argue that the case can only be explained by reference to Waltz’ first image, the individual level. We invoke Giddens' notion of structuration to explain how a small group of like-minded women, many of them diplomats, were able to work within existing structures of international diplomacy to create institutions that embedded their ideals in international law. These women were critical actors, positioned simultaneously in activist organizations and government and diplomatic institutions, giving them leverage to institutionalize new norms. The case shows the importance of analysis at the individual level to explain normative change in the international system.

Do international treaties lead to cross-national increases in women's rights? In contrast to Asal, Brown, and Figueroa's (2008) suggestion that the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) is not an important factor in explaining the liberalization of abortion rights polices, this article argues that the treaty contributes to increases in abortion rights when the terms of ratification are disaggregated. Previous excursions into this question have only considered whether a state has ratified the treaty, which is problematic from both a methodological and theoretical standpoint given that many states ratified with conditions, while only six states did not ratify at all. Additionally, some states ratified the Optional Protocol and some have not. We demonstrate that the disaggregation of levels of treaty ratification is associated with increases in women's rights in a model replicating that of Asal, Brown, and Figueroa. Further, we extend our knowledge of the dynamics of treaty ratification through the use of structural equations to more fully model how political, cultural, and economic factors, as well as exogenous international pressures, interact to produce changes in women's rights around the world.

The proliferation of legal and normative standards regulating women's rights in conflict has been accompanied by concerns about their efficacy. The article examines the activities of the CEDAW Committee and the UN Security Council and considers how synergies might be advanced. The article finds that, while the Security Council has unique authority over UN system activities, sanctions and peacekeeping, the CEDAW Committee—as a human rights treaty monitoring body—possesses the more effective system of State accountability and the more robust commitment to women's equality and rights. The article proposes measures for the optimum interaction between both institutions in order to maximize overall accountability for women's rights in conflict.

The court in this case decided that state subsidy to political parties that discriminate against women is prohibited by international treaties, notably the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

This raises a number of issues. Where the discrimination is for religious reasons, does sex equality need to be balanced against religious freedom? Both are usually seen as fundamental rights. What about discrimination against men, in favour of women; is that also against the law? Finally, is the obligation not to discriminate only binding on the state, or also on the party itself? Could such a party be banned from politics? Some of these issues were touched on by the court, although not convincingly, and some of them, such as religious freedom, were scandalously ignored.