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Purpose: The United States became a member of the United Nations’ (UN’s) core anti-racism treaty, International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), but has not passed the UN’s core gender equality treaty, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). This chapter explores why the United States passed only one of the conventions. It reviews the power, misinterpretation, and compliance theories that explain why only one of the treaties was ratified. In addition, it offers a fourth explanation of the nation’s behavior – that of relative cost.

Findings: This chapter shows that CEDAW’s mandates, which are specific in nature, are costlier with respect to public services, educational resources, and programs to alleviate cultural prejudices, than are the more broadly framed ICERD mandates. This chapter finds this difference as a driving factor for the nation to enter into the race convention and not the women’s rights pact.

Methodologies: Methodologies used in this publication include feminist and legal analyses and the examination of US policies as well as statements made by political figures.

Originality: This chapter makes contributions to legal and feminist scholarship by providing insight into the nation’s adoption of ICERD, and its failure to ratify CEDAW despite its stance that it is a supporter of women’s rights. The implications of this study are that while the power, misinterpretation, and compliance theories are useful to understand the apparent discrepant response to the two treaties, relative cost as defined by the different ways in which the treaties are framed is also useful in explaining the United States’ failure to ratify the gender equality treaty. Though CEDAW is more specific in its identification of equality issues and is costlier than ICERD, the advancement of both gender and racial equality in the United States falls short of international standards.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between the ratification of the United Nations’ (UN’s) Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and women’s and girls’ health outcomes using a unique longitudinal data set of 192 UN-member countries that encompasses the years from 1980 to 2011.

The authors focus on the impact of CEDAW ratification, number of reports submitted after ratification, years passed since ratification, and the dynamic impact of CEDAW ratification by utilizing ordinary least squares (OLS) and panel fixed effects methods. The study investigates the following women’s and girls’ health outcomes: total fertility rate, adolescent fertility rate, infant mortality rate, maternal mortality ratio, neonatal mortality rate, female life expectancy at birth (FLEB), and female to male life expectancy at birth.

The OLS and panel country and year fixed effects models provide evidence that the impact of CEDAW ratification on women’s and girls’ health outcomes varies by global regions. While the authors find no significant gains in health outcomes in European and North-American countries, the countries in the Northern Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, Southern Africa, Caribbean and Central America, South America, Middle-East, Eastern Asia, and Oceania regions experienced the biggest gains from CEDAW ratification, exhibiting reductions in total fertility, adolescent fertility, infant mortality, maternal mortality, and neonatal mortality while also showing improvements in FLEB. The results provide evidence that both early commitment to CEDAW as measured by the total number of years of engagement after the UN’s 1980 ratification and the timely submission of mandatory CEDAW reports have positive impacts on women’ and girls’ health outcomes. Several sensitivity tests confirm the robustness of main findings.

This study is the first comprehensive attempt to explore the multifaceted relationships between CEDAW ratification and female health outcomes. The study significantly expands on the methods of earlier research and presents novel methods and findings on the relationship between CEDAW ratification and women’s health outcomes. The findings suggest that the impact of CEDAW ratification significantly depends on the country’s region. Furthermore, stronger engagement with CEDAW (as indicated by the total number of years following country ratification) and the submission of the required CEDAW reports (as outlined in the Convention’s guidelines) have positive impacts on women’s and girls’ health outcomes.

Purpose – Using sexual harassment in Japan as a case, this research illustrates how local gender culture, particularly sexual harassment consciousness, has changed since initial local legal reform.

Design/methodology/approach – The historical analysis draws on national newspaper reporting of a fairly new concept of sexual harassment into a local society.

Findings – My findings suggest that Japanese actively engaged in, rather than rejected, the new social issue; their active response gave rise to social consciousness toward sekuhara especially and sex discrimination more generally. Broader and more inclusive definitions of sexual harassment appeared in Japan than the original international legal definitions. Local–international interactions effectively shaped such outcomes.

Originality/value – This is the first qualitative and quantitative analysis of the media's portrayals of sexual harassment in Japan.

Sterilization is endorsed as a method of family planning by international governmental organizations; abortion is not. Focusing on policy development for these two issues in a single country, Peru, we ask how power and inequality operate under conditions of global consensus or dissensus. The case of sterilization unfolded the way many previous research studies would predict, with Peruvian state actions corresponding to a global diffusion process. We find that global consensus provided cover for top-down actions that violated the human rights of indigenous women in the country, who were predominantly poor, non-Spanish speakers, and residents of the mountainous, sparsely populated parts of the country. With respect to abortion in Peru, in the absence of global consensus, the state resisted calls for change, advocacy networks have worked at cross-purposes, and a powerful local actor, the Catholic Church, has effectively blocked liberalization efforts. As with sterilization, however, marginalized indigenous women and their interests were rendered invisible.

The international women's movement has always focused on discrimination against women, but only in the past few decades have activists been focusing on violence against women, and within this framework, domestic violence. Global feminist activism found common ground in protecting women from physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. This framework traveled to Eastern Europe with the advent of regime changes there. In post-communist Europe, it took only a decade and a half for the Polish, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, and Slovene governments to react to domestic and global pressures and establish new definitions and policies regarding domestic violence. However, the feminist NGOs’ definitions and policy recommendations met with limited success. Feminist-inspired norms, such as specific domestic violence courts and distancing ordinances, diffused to a mediocre level of half-hearted official responses in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). This middle-of-the-road approach attempted to de-gender and thus to de-politicize feminists’ fundamental gender-sensitive claims. A norm diffusion to reach the middle ground took place through a complex set of interactions that involved various types of political actors ranging from international governmental organizations, such as the UN and the EU, governments, international and local NGOs. Analyzing the process of these multiple-level and manifold interactions sheds light on the partially deterritorialized nature of globalization. The development of norms and their difffnousion regarding domestic violence policy also inform us about how democratic processes, efforts to achieve gender equality, and the global context interact in CEE.

Purpose: This chapter considers whether it would be beneficial, and appropriate based on the application of equality law to date, for the UK government to mandate gender equality objectives set by the United Nations as requirements in initiatives aimed at stimulating the economy, specifically the Northern Powerhouse. It considers the success of the Northern Powerhouse and its impact on females in the region.

Method: The data used as a basis for analysis in this chapter were obtained through secondary research. A mixture of quantitative and qualitative data is used, with a heavy weighting towards quantitative information.

Findings: Gender inequality remains a significant issue for females in the United Kingdom. The UK government have implemented the requirements of Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) through a non-prescriptive framework, resulting in specific industries and businesses lobbying for further development. Gender equality was not a specific consideration in the launch of the Northern Powerhouse, leading to challenges in its implementation.

Originality: There has been significant research undertaken on gender inequality in the United Kingdom, however, this chapter is the first to explore the relationship between the requirements of CEDAW and the government initiative, the Northern Powerhouse.

Purpose: The chapter aims to analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on levels of domestic abuse at the global level; examine the responses of international and regional human rights bodies; and identify lessons which can be learnt with regard to responding to domestic abuse in a post-pandemic context.

Methodology/Approach: The chapter discusses the increase in rates of domestic abuse since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and proceeds to examine this form of abuse as an issue for international human rights law. The chapter then focuses on the responses of international and regional human rights bodies to the increased levels of domestic abuse in the context of the pandemic.

Findings: There is a danger of viewing the recent issues surrounding domestic abuse as simply being caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, in reality the pandemic has served to expose and exacerbate pre-existing difficulties with the responses of States to this form of abuse.

Originality/value: The chapter adds to the literature on domestic abuse as a human rights issue by focusing on the specific context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) requires that women’s experiences, needs, and perspectives are incorporated into the political, legal, and social decisions in order to achieve transitional justice. In a post-conflict society, peace, and security should be understood in a wider context of justice encompassing accountability process and mechanisms, reparations for victims and upholding the principle of equality in all spheres of lives. Thus, the objective of the UNSCR 1325 is to increase women’s participation in decision-making in the peace process to address the wider context of women’s situation in post-conflict society and committing to protect women’s socioeconomic rights. It is obvious that women’s mere presence in decision-making process is insufficient in restoring stability in post-conflict society. Women’s participation will only be meaningful if they are empowered to be active rather than passive participants. Hence, it is argued that women’s leadership could only be built, if they are given adequate representation in decision-making process and institutions. Women’s participation in decision-making and women’s economic empowerment has a symbiotic impact on each other. When women are not stable economically and unable to freely make social choices and take responsibilities, they will not have the courage to compete in an election. Thus, this brief study argues that the economic marginalization (overt and covert discrimination) exposes women to multiple discrimination in post-conflict society in Sri Lanka. Hence, countries like Sri Lanka need to address the existing gap in this sphere of women empowerment and leadership. It concludes that the realization of women’s rights to equality in post-conflict Sri Lanka may be a slow process, but the Sri Lankan experiences provide a good case study on how to face the different challenges in post-conflict context.

This article considers how digital technologies are informed by, and implicated in, the systematic and interlocking oppressions of colonialism, misogyny, and racism, all of which have been identified as root causes of the missing and murdered Indigenous women crisis in Canada. The authors consider how technology can facilitate multiple forms of violence against women including stalking and intimate partner violence, human trafficking, pornography and child abuse images, and online hate and harassment and note instances where Indigenous women and girls may be particularly vulnerable. The authors also explore some of the complexities related to police use of technology for investigatory purposes, touching on police use of social media and DNA technology. Without simplistically blaming technology, the authors argue that technology interacts with multiple factors in the complex historical, socio-cultural environment that incubates the national crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. The article concludes with related questions that may be considered at the impending national inquiry.

This chapter situates the South Pacific region’s engagement in progressing gender equality and women’s empowerment within broader gender and development (GAD) debates. It explores the international ‘gender agenda’ and how its associated frameworks, platforms, policies and metrics have diffused throughout the South Pacific. Limited progress in achieving gender equality and empowerment goals has been made, globally and regionally, with considerable challenges yet to be overcome. Complementing the book’s focus on the integration of gender into agricultural research and development projects, the chapter reviews rural women’s access to income and land in the South Pacific, and their contributions to agricultural production and marketing.