Position of Women under International instruments — Salient features of Convention for Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and optional protocols to the Convention

When a woman in an office in BKC was harassed by a senior colleague in the 1990s, there was no Indian law on sexual harassment at the workplace. The Supreme Court still gave her an answer, and it reached for an international treaty to do so. How can a treaty signed in New York or Geneva change what happens in a Mumbai office? This topic explains how international women's rights law is built, what CEDAW says, and how it reaches Indian courts.

In two minutes

CEDAW, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1979, is the main international treaty on women's rights: it defines discrimination against women, obliges States to eliminate it in every field and is monitored by a Committee; India ratified it in 1993 and its principles reach Indian courts through Arts.51(c), 253 and 14, 15 and 21.

The rest of this chapter

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