11. March
Conference Opening
9.15 – 9.30 Welcome, Professor Geir Ulfstein, co-director of the program Should States Ratify Human Rights
9.30 – 9.45 Opening remarks, Professor Anne Hellum
Part I
Pushing the boundaries of national sovereignty
Chair: Professor Henriette Sinding Aasen
The overall topic in this session is how the CEDAW Committee in its jurisprudence has balanced the non-discrimination principle with national sovereignty, state discretion and proportionality. The concept of gender sterotyping serves as starting point for a discussion of how the CEDAW Committee’s holistic jurisprudence has influenced the boundary between national sovereignty and international law with a view to strengthen the individual’s protection against discrimination.
10.00 – 10.30
The CEDAW committee’s consideration of national sovereignty and democracy, the scope of state discretion and proportionality.
Professor Cees Flinterman
10. 30 – 11.00
The CEDAW Convention's holistic approach to equality and non-discrimination.
Professor Rikki Holtmaat
11.00 -11 15 Coffee break
11.15 – 12.15
CEDAW, gender stereotyping, sovereignty, discretion and proportionality.
Professor Simone Cusack
12.15 - 12.45
From CEDAW to the American Convention: Elucidation of Women’s Right to a Life’s Project and Protection of Maternal Identity within Inter-American Human Rights Jurisprudence
Professor Cecilia Bailliet
12.45 - 12.30 Comments
Professor Mads Andenæs, Professor Kirsten Ketscher, Professor Andreas Føllesdal, Professor Shaheen Sardar Ali
13.00 – 13.30 Discussion
13.30 – 14.30 Lunch
Part II
Convergence and fragmentation across treaty bodies : CEDAW, HRCand CESCR
Chair: Professor Anne Hellum
Women’s civil, political, social and economic rights are today addressed by a series of overlapping treaty bodies, such as CEDAW, CESCR and HRC. In this session we explore how the UN’s gender mainstreaming policy and the CEDAW committee’s jurisprudence has affected the work of HRC and CESCR. Violence, housing and maternal mortality serves as a window into convergence and fragmentation across treaty bodies with focus on CEDAW, CESCR and HRC. Overall questions are where within the human rights system are the rights of women most effectively protected? Are we experiencing conflicting jurisprudence? What would the concsequences of a unified human rights regime be for the protection of women’s rights?
14.30 – 15.00
Women's Rights are Human Rights - the Practice of the United Nations HRC and the CESCR.
Asst. Professor Fleur van Leeuwen
15.00 – 15.30
Engendering social and economic rights.
Professor Sandra Fredman
15.00 – 15.30
Property and security: Articulating women's rights to their homes between CEDAW and CESCR
Research fellow Ingunn Ikdahl
15.30 – 15.45 Coffee break
15.45 – 16.15
Maternal mortality and the right to health in CEDAW and CESCR.
Professor Henriette Sinding Aasen
16.45 – 17.15 Comments
Professor Geir Ulfstein, Professor Andrew Byrnes, Researcher Liz Delport, Research fellow Malcolm Langford
17.15 – 18. 00 Discussion
19. 00 Conference dinner at Hotel Gabelhus
12. March
Part III
Domestication of CEDAW – national case studies
Chair: Professor Henriette Sinding Aasen
The overall aim of this part of the workshop is the analysis and comparison of how CEDAW has been implemented in different legal and political contexts. When and how do questions of legal, political or social legitimacy arise? To explore these questions the national case studies have been grouped into three clusters (1) postcolonial, postconflict and conflict states, (2) common law traditions, commonwealth countries, federal states, (3) monist and dualist civil law traditions in European nation states.
Crosscutting questions are whether the CEDAW Committee’s general recommendations and concluding comments are reflected in judicial review or in existing legal structures set up to combat discrimination? A related question is whether CEDAW’s interventions had any visible effect on national laws and policies? Who have been the main actors of change; parlamentarians, civil servants, researchers, NGO’s, INGO’s? How have factors like legal research, elite legal education and civil society mobilization affected the way in which women’s right to equality and non-discrimination has been adopted or resisted at national and local level ?
CEDAW in postcolonial, postconflict and conflict states
9.15 – 10.15
- South Africa, Researcher Liz Delport, University of Pretoria
- Nepal, Kabita Pandy, Program Manager Access to Justice Program
- Zimbabwe, Research fellow Emilia Muchawa, University of Zimbabwe
10.15 – 10.30 Coffee break
10.30 – 11.10
- Thailand, Professor Virada Somswasdi, Chiang Mai University
- Pakistan, Professor Shaheen Sardar Ali, Peshawar/Warwick/Oslo University
11.10 – 11.45 Comments and discussion
Professor Andreas Føllesdal, Professor Anne Hellum
CEDAW in federal states and common law traditions
11.45 – 13.15
- UK, Professor Sandra Fredman, University of Oxford
- Canada, Professor Lucie Lamarche, University of Ottawa
- Australia, Professor Andrew Byrnes
- India, Madhu Mera, Partner in Law and Development, Dehli
13.15 – 14.15 Lunch
14.15 – 14.45 Comments and discussion
Professor Mads Andenæs, Professor Shaheen Sardar Ali, Research fellow Malcolm Langford
CEDAW in monist and dualist civil law traditions
14.45 – 16.15
- Netherlands, Marjolein van den Brink
- France, Professor Helene Ruiz-Fabri, Paris University
- Finland, Professor Kevat Nousiainen, Helsinki University
- Norway, Professor Anne Hellum, University of Oslo
16.15 – 16.30 Coffee break
16.30 – 17.30 comment and discussion
Profesor Hege Skjeie, Professor Geir Ulfstein
17.30 – Concluding comments Andreas Føllesdal, Anne Hellum, Shaheen Sardar Ali