Meeting of States Parties to Convention on Elimination of Discrimination against Women Elects 11 Independent Experts to Treaty Monitoring Body

The Meeting of States Parties to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women elected 11 members to its monitoring body today, replacing those whose four-year terms are set to expire at the end of 2016.

In two rounds of voting by secret ballot, the following experts were elected to serve on the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women from 1 January 2017 until 31 December 2019:  Dalia Leinarte (Lithuania), Nicole Ameline (France), Wenyan Song (China), Nahla Haidar (Lebanon), Gunnar Bergby (Norway), Bandana Rana (Nepal), Rosario Manalo (Philippines), Hilary Gbedemah (Ghana), Theodora Oby Nwankwo (Nigeria), Aicha Vall Verges (Mauritania) and Marion Bethel (Bahamas).

The experts were elected from a list of 25 candidates, whose biographical information is contained in document CEDAW/SP/2016/2.

Comprising 23 independent experts serving in their personal capacity, the Committee monitors the implementation of the Convention by States parties.  Each expert serves a four-year term and elections are held every two years, ensuring a balance between continuity and change in the Committee’s composition.

Earlier in the day, Maarit Kohonen-Sheriff, Deputy Head of the New York Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, discussed, as a representative of the Secretary‑General, developments in the Committee since the last Meeting of States Parties in June 2014.  She said South Sudan had acceded to the Convention, bringing the total number of adherents to 189.  Monaco had joined the Optional Protocol, bringing the total number to 107.  Sri Lanka had accepted the amendment to article 20, paragraph 1 of the Convention, on the Committee’s meeting time, bringing that total to 70.  A total of 126 States parties were required for the amendment to take effect.

She went on to say that the Committee had examined 51 reports of States parties; 47 initial and periodic reports were pending consideration.  It had also adopted final decisions on 17 individual communications submitted under article 2 of the Optional Protocol.  The number of inquiry submissions alleging grave or systematic violations of the Convention under article 8 of the Optional Protocol had continued to grow, adding to the Committee’s workload.  To cope, the Committee had set up, on a pilot basis, a Working Group on Inquiries under the Optional Protocol to the Convention in November 2014.

Additionally, she said, the Committee had continued to adopt general recommendations.  Joint recommendation number 31 of the Women’s Committee/general comment number 18 of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, on harmful practices — the first ever such document adopted jointly by the two treaty bodies — had been adopted at the Committee’s fifty-ninth session, in November 2014.  Also adopted was general recommendation number 32 — on gender-related dimensions of refugee status, asylum, nationality and statelessness of women.

Providing updates on subsequent sessions, she said that at its sixty-first session in July 2015, the Women’s Committee had adopted general recommendation number 33 on women’s access to justice.  At its sixty-third session in March 2016, it had adopted general recommendation number 34 on the rights of rural women. 

At present, she said, the Committee was working on several recommendations concerning women’s and girls’ right to education, gender-related dimensions of disaster-risk reduction and climate change and gender-based violence against women.  In addition, the Committee had continued to adopt statements on thematic issues such as the situation of women in Iraq, Syria and Gaza, the refugee crisis and the protection of women and girls.

Turning to the Committee’s efforts to streamline and harmonize working methods to improve time and resource management, she said it had decided to limit its working languages to English, French, Spanish, and, on an exceptional basis, Arabic.  It had also decided to adopt, on a pilot basis, the simplified reporting procedure, to adopt a guidance note on a harmonized constructive dialogue with States parties and a framework for concluding observations and to shorten the length of its concluding observations and standardize the formulation of recommendations.

Turning to its work with the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women) and the Sustainable Development Goals, she said the Committee had decided to mandate its working group on the Committee, UN-Women, and the Sustainable Development Goals to explore ways and means for contributing to the follow-up and review of target 5.1 as well as of other relevant targets and to include references to the Goals in lists of issues and concluding observations relating to States parties’ reports.

When the floor was opened to delegations, the representative of the Russian Federation took issue with several of the Committee’s recommendations and said her country was not bound by them.  She also said that the modalities and mechanisms for considering national reports must be revised, stressing that experts focused too much on broad theoretical issues, leaving States parties with insufficient time to provide quality responses.  Future reports should be more succinct and specific, she said.

At the outset, the Meeting of States Parties elected, by acclamation, Mwaba Patricia Kasese-Bota (Zambia) as its Chair, upon her nomination from the African States.  Nadav Yesod (Israel) from the Group of Western European and other States and Mohammed Marzooq (Iraq) from the Asia-Pacific Group of States were elected Vice-Chairs.

The representative of China also made a statement.

Voting Results

189 States Parties voted.