Why, in 27 years, has the United States Senate failed to ratify CEDAW?
The Senate should do so as part of its outrage at the cruelties inflicted on women all over the world. Darfur is only the latest shameful example. CEDAW is a symbol of American ideals of equality and human rights. These are standards that we ourselves helped draft. We should not continue to distance ourselves from them. U.S. Senate ratification of CEDAW will demonstrate our concern about women’s rights, our willingness to join the global consensus and hold ourselves to the international minimum standards for the treatment of women. We in the United States pride ourselves on being one of the first great experiments in building a just and representative government. Our founders took advantage of their fresh start after casting off colony status to build a new nation in what was still a new world. They famously declared we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. While a small and radical minority might still read these words as limiting full equality to male