Descrizione

Discrimination against women is a topic that has always accompanied the history of all societies in all ages. It is an issue that can be expressed with different formulas and paradigms, but, de facto, discrimination against women is omnipresent. Nowadays, women’s rights are the subject of analysis and investigation within the overall framework of a real human rights culture that, in the present era, has to face the complexity and unexpected risk of the phenomenon of globalization, like Covid-19. 

The reasons for discriminatory stances against women are both social and legal, mutually influencing each other. The comparison is between social issues, which develop and change over the ages, and legislative responses. 

Within this dialogue between society and law, the activity carried out by international structures, aimed at monitoring international conventions on women, plays a fundamental role. In particular, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW Committee) is the United Nations Treaty Body that oversees the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW Convention). 

This manuscript is intended to be an analysis of how the Committee interacts with the individual States Parties to the Convention for its implementation in national practices and legislative systems. 

 Laura Guercio, is a practising lawyer with a degree in Law and a degree in Political Science. She completed her doctoral studies in Social Science at the University of Genoa, Italy, and Trinity College Dublin, Republic of Ireland. She is Professor of Sociology of Fundamental Rights at the University of Perugia, Italy. Author of the following among her books: Women’s rights after the Arab Springs: buds without flower? (Cambridge Scholars 2019); Sociologia dei diritti umani, (Guercio-Blokker, Mondadori 2019); Donne, pace e sicurezza: tra essere e dover essere, (Guercio-Grassi, Franco Angeli 2018). Among the covered positions, Member of the Management Board of the European Agency for Fundamental Rights; Secretary General of the Inter-Ministerial Committee for Human Rights at the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Member of the Council of the European Law Institute; Head of the International Relations Office of the International Criminal Bar Association.