AbstractEthnographic analysis carri

Abstract
Ethnographic analysis carried out over the years, indicates that the critical feature of the
CEDAW process is its cultural and educational role: Its capacity to coalesce and express a
particular cultural understanding of gender. Like more conventional legal processes, its
significance lies in its capacity to shape cultural understandings and to articulate and
expand a vision of rights. This is a form of global legality that depends deeply on its texts,
not for enforcement but for the production of cultural meanings associated with modernity
and the international. It is ultimately dependent on generating political pressure on states
from the CEDAW committee, from sympathetic leaders within a country, and from international
and national nongovernmental organizations.
Keywords
Women, Human rights, gender violence, women’s convention, gender justice, CEDAW,
global legality, ratification, postcolonial modernity, cultural production, United Nations
The major legal mechanism for protecting women’s human rights through
international law is the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of
Discrimination Against Women, typically referred to as CEDAW. This
convention, which was written between the fifties and seventies and finalized
in 1979, has been widely adopted through ratification by countries
around the world.1
It takes the form of a multilateral treaty, binding only