PRESS BRIEFING ON OPTIONAL PROTOCOL TO WOMEN'S ANTI-DISCRIMINATION CONVENTION

Press Briefing

PRESS BRIEFING ON OPTIONAL PROTOCOL TO WOMEN'S ANTI-DISCRIMINATION CONVENTION

The major success of the Commission on the Status of Women in 1999 was the approval of an optional protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, Patricia Flor of Germany, Chairperson of the Commission, told correspondents at a Headquarters press briefing this morning.

Ms. Flor was joined by Angela King, Special Adviser of the Secretary- General on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, and Aloisia Woergetter of Austria, Chairperson of the Open-ended Working Group on the Elaboration of a Draft Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

It was a major success because, after four years of intense negotiations, the Working Group had managed to arrive at a consensus regarding the optional protocol, Ms. Flor said. Following the adoption of the protocol by the General Assembly, and then ratification in a speedy fashion by Member States, women would finally get a right of petition under their own Convention. It meant that women would be on par with other human rights instruments, which had complaints procedures, such as the one now being established by the optional protocol, for a number of years. They would finally be able to take their complaints and grievances to the United Nations, in case they could not get remedies within their own countries or local judicial systems.

Ms. King said that the members of the Division for the Advancement of Women and the entire Secretariat were delighted that the optional protocol had been approved. The question of the Convention and its ratification was also very close to the heart of the Secretary-General, as had been mentioned in his statement of 4 March. The protocol's approval was due to the very skilful leadership of the Chairperson, Ms. Woergetter, and the other negotiators from Lesotho and Romania. She also paid tribute to the experts of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, particularly Judge Silvia Cartwright of New Zealand, who was the official delegate from the Committee to interact with the Working Group.

She said that women all over the world would be extremely delighted by the protocol. It was hoped that its approval would inspire the other 22 Member States, who had not yet ratified the Convention, to do so before the end of next year, in accordance with the Platform for Action of the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995). It would move on from the Commission to the Economic and Social Council and then to the General Assembly. The optional protocol required ratification by 10 States before it could enter into force, which she hoped would be early next year.

Ms. Woergetter said that when the Convention had been negotiated 22 years ago, there had been an aim for a right to petition to be included, but that had failed. In effect, one element that should have been in the Convention from the very beginning had just been completed.

She said the last binding human rights instrument that had been adopted in the United Nations, not withstanding the Statute of the International Criminal Court last year, had been nine years ago -- the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of all Migrant Workers and Members of their Families, which had still not entered into force. That Convention and other binding human rights treaties had not been adopted by consensus, which was very unusual for human rights documents. She was convinced that the Assembly would adopt the optional protocol by consensus, which would allow it to enter into force and have a strong standing within Member States, which was important for making it a valuable instrument for women.

The optional protocol contained a right to petition for women and a right to inquiry, she said. It was an inquiry procedure that the Committee could use on its own initiative for States parties that had not opted out of that procedure. That procedure was not mandatory in the protocol. Also a success was the fact that no reservations were allowed to the protocol, which was unusual for human rights documents. That was necessary to prevent further reservations that could indirectly hurt the Convention, which was already burdened by so many reservations, many of which were against the objective and purpose of the Convention itself.

Concerning the work of the Commission on the Status of Women, Ms. Flor said that during its recent session, the Commission had discussed the last two critical areas of Beijing, which it had not yet looked at after 1995 -- health and institutional mechanisms. The Commission had not yet adopted the final documents -- the agreed conclusions -- on those two issues. However, the negotiations on health had been concluded and the negotiations on institutional mechanisms were close to being concluded.

With regard to health, delegations had reaffirmed the Beijing Platform for Action's chapter on health, notwithstanding that some of them had reservations as they did in Beijing, concerning some of the articles of that section. However, the agreed conclusions on health contained a lot of good recommendations. In terms of achievements, the Commission had taken a holistic view of women's health. While issues such as maternal mortality and sexual and reproductive health were essential for women, other health threats, including mental illnesses, infectious diseases, such as HIV/AIDS, occupational and environmental hazards, were just as important to women's health. The Commission had looked at all of those areas and had given recommendations.

One of the recommendations was the call for a gender-sensitive health system, she said. In terms of medical research, it was still true that

Press Briefing on Optional Protocol - 3 - 15 March 1999

research in many areas had focused on men, taking men as the model patient for diseases. In many cases, it had been forgotten that women might have other symptoms and other needs for treatment than men because of the biological differences. There was a call for research to take into account the specific differences between the two sexes and be gender-sensitive in the doctor/patient relationship. Another recommendation, which deserved highlighting in the area of HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases, was that female-controlled methods of prevention should be promoted and made accessible, so that women would be empowered to protect themselves against transmission of such diseases.

She said that with regard to institutional mechanisms, the Commission had looked at how national machineries for the advancement of women could be strengthened. They needed to be put on the highest level, meaning they had to be connected to the Prime Minister's Office, or to a central agency within a government, to be really influential and make women's concerns known throughout all areas of government activity. Also, they needed sufficient resources to function efficiently. The mainstreaming of a gender perspective was another area within institutional mechanisms. Whatever measures were being taken on a government level would need to be assessed regarding their gender differential impact.

The Commission had adopted four resolutions -- women and the girl child and HIV/AIDS; Palestinian women; the system wide medium-term plan for the advancement of women; and release of women and children taken hostage. There were also two resolutions which still needed to be adopted -- one on Afghanistan and the other on health. Regarding Afghanistan, the Commission felt, once again, that it was necessary to adopt a resolution on the situation of women in that country. The Commission again called on all parties in Afghanistan to respect women's rights and to ensure that women could really enjoy all of their human rights. It also reiterated that all humanitarian assistance given to Afghanistan should be given with equal benefit to women and men. Donors and United Nations agencies had to ensure that women and girls benefitted equally from humanitarian measures in Afghanistan.

Responding to a question on what the optional protocol covered, Ms. Woergetter said that it was, in fact, only an add-on to the Convention. As the Convention covered all forms of discrimination, it was a very broad document. It dealt with one right -- the right of non-discrimination against women, and was very explicit in explaining what discrimination against women was. The protocol would cover all those elements as outlined in the Convention.

Asked why the protocol was called "optional", Ms. King replied that it was because States parties to the Convention who had ratified it did not necessarily have to ratify the protocol, which was not compulsory. It was purely optional, even more so since there was an opt-out clause in it.

Press Briefing on Optional Protocol - 4 - 15 March 1999

In response to why the protocol had not been completed sooner, Ms. King said that there had been the question of standing and the question of actually who should have the right to make complaints. The original idea had been that any individual woman anywhere in the world could make a complaint, provided that she had used all the mechanisms at the national level and had not found the remedies she sought. However, it had been pointed out that in many countries, poor or illiterate women might not have access to lawyers. So the question of whether others could act on a woman's behalf had been a matter of controversy. That had now been resolved. There was also the question of whether reservations should be allowed or not. They were not allowed since the protocol was optional.

Regarding the issue of representation, Ms. Woergetter said that the issues had been the same as they had been last year. The year had helped the Working Group to gain more political support. Non-governmental organizations had been working actively to lobby and explain to government delegations what the issues were. Delegations had the chance to go back and coordinate their instructions at home. The issue of standing, which had been problematic last year, had been resolved in adding a clause of how representation would be possible. Article Two stated that representation would be possible if the consent of the victim had been sought. Then there were also cases where the representative could justify acting on behalf of the victim without consent. On the question of reservations, many delegations had changed their minds over the year and that had helped them to reach a consensus.

Asked how much more transparent the complaints process would be under the optional protocol, Ms. Flor said that in the Commission there was a communications procedure, which was not related to any legal instrument, for instance to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. That communications procedure was in some sense similar to a procedure under the Commission on Human Rights. It meant that complaints by individual women, who felt that their rights had been violated, would come from Geneva, from the Commission on Human Rights, to the Commission on the Status of Women, as far as they concerned women. Some of them might come directly to New York, to the Commission on the Status of Women, through the Division for the Advancement of Women.

The Commission then would look at them with the objective of identifying general trends regarding violations of women's rights, she continued. So the Commission would not discuss individual cases and then make recommendations, but it would only look at that to see what patterns of human rights violations could be identified. It would then decide whether there was a need for the Commission or for the Economic and Social Council to look more closely at those trends.

That was something completely different from the optional protocol, she said. The protocol, an add-on to the Convention itself, would establish an individual right of petition through the responsible Committee -- the

Press Briefing on Optional Protocol - 5 - 15 March 1999

Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. That Committee would look at the individual cases and then make recommendations to the State party concerned, with regard to those individual cases. Therefore, those were two entirely different procedures. Only the optional protocol would allow women to have their cases heard, as individuals, before a United Nations committee, which was a treaty body.

Ms. Woergetter added that under the protocol, a case, as long as it was pending, would be dealt with confidentially to protect the victim. It would be made public in the report of the Committee as soon as the case was settled. Since the protocol was silent on how to deal with enquiries, those cases could be made public immediately after they were initiated.

With regard to the kind of complaints that women could bring under the protocol, Ms. King said that, for example, the complaints could deal with women journalists who might not be allowed to speak out or write; sexual harassment in the workplace; women who were not being given full opportunities; women who were not being given access to healthcare; and a whole range of other complaints. There was also the whole question of violence against women, which did not appear as an article under the Convention. However, there had subsequently been a declaration against all forms of violence against women in 1993.

Ms. Woergetter added that the Convention was a very strong document. Article Four, for example, included affirmative action for women until equality among women and men was established. That was not very popular nowadays, and that had been understood 20 years ago. If a complaints procedure had been available, women would have called for it to be enforced by States parties to the Convention. That was what held many States back. On the other hand, now everyone had understood that it was important to fully implement the Convention. She believed there would be a lot of support for the protocol, even by States parties who received complaints.

Responding to a question on the kinds of remedies for women, Ms. Woergetter said that the remedies would be binding under international human rights law, since States parties to the Convention made it their duty to fully implement the Convention. The Committee, however, had no means to execute their recommendations. Most of the recommendations envisaged at the moment would be requests to change laws or policies, and so would be more of a general nature, rather than being prone to only one specific case.

Ms. King said that one fact that had been emphasized in the deliberations was that the protocol could not be effective unless the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and the Secretariat were given the resources to prepare the cases. Obviously, there would have to be additional meetings of the Committee. It was envisaged that there would be a certain number of cases starting up as soon as there was

Press Briefing on Optional Protocol - 6 - 15 March 1999

ratification. If the resources were not provided, the protocol would be a dead letter.

Commenting on the activities of the Commission as the Acting Preparatory Committee for the Special Session of the Assembly, Ms. King said that the opening of the second Preparatory Committee of the Commission had just taken place. They would be preparing intensely for the special session of the Assembly entitled, "Women 2000: Gender Equality, Development and Peace for the Twenty-First Century", which would take place from 5 to 9 June, 2000. This week, the Commission would be looking at two critical areas that were programmatic.

She said that the first would be how to go about conducting the review and appraisal of the 12 critical areas, which had been reviewed since 1996. A cross-cutting approach was going to be used, rather than going through each area individually. The issues that would be looked at, under each of the areas, included capacity-building, political will and accountability. Fed into that would be the results of a questionnaire that had been prepared in collaboration with the regional commissions, so as to get all the regional points of view. That would be presented at the next Preparatory Committee. What was needed at the current session were the reactions of Member States.

The second part would involve the question of future action and initiatives, because it was very important for the Commission to have its multi-year programme settled for the year 2001 to 2005, she continued. Some of the issues and themes, which were cross-cutting and came out of the 12 critical areas, were globalization and its impact on women, particularly poor women; women in leadership; women, science and technology, and the information revolution; and human security and social safety nets. During the morning session, Côte d'Ivoire had proposed an additional theme -- good governance. It was hoped that during the week, Member States would decide what it was they wanted to focus on.

She said that the third aspect was to decide the structure of the special session, whether or not there would be a plenary, and what the nature of non-governmental organization participation would be since it was not an international conference, but a special session of the Assembly. There was an almost entirely new Bureau with 10 members -- two from each region. Irma Engelbrecht of South Africa had been selected as the Chairperson. They were still awaiting the election of the two members to the Bureau from Asia.

* *** *