Abduction. With respect to the Muslim world,
there are numerous examples where Western court
child custody decrees grant custody to the mother,
and fathers from Muslim countries abduct the chil-
dren and take them to their home country, where
the law recognizes that the child in a divorce
belongs to the father after a certain age (Andrews
2000). This convention is designed to prevent such
abductions and make sure the children are returned
to the custodial parent.
Finally, a few international agreements were
designed specifically to apply to women, the most
comprehensive being the Convention on the Elim-
ination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women (CEDAW), written in part to remedy the
gaps in the previously mentioned approaches.
CEDAW had 174 States Parties as of June 2003.
Other treaties range from the post-Second World
War Convention on the Political Rights of Women
(1953), the Convention on the Nationality of Mar-
ried Women (1957), to the twenty-first century
International Labor Organization Maternity Pro-
tection Convention (2000).
Even when a treaty is designed specifically to
apply to women, there can be glaring omissions.
For example, CEDAW does not explicitly mention
violence against women, although various provi-
sions could be interpreted as covering that topic.
The 1994 Declaration on the Elimination of Vio-
lence against Women tries to fill in the gaps, but like
all declarations, is not binding in international law.
With respect to violence, CEDAW does not specifi-
cally mention customary practices of some coun-
tries of the Islamic world such as honor killings.
Valuing female chastity and modesty, male mem-
bers of a family feel justified in killing any female
relative, including their own mothers, sisters, or
wives. Practices like dating, wearing clothes regarded
as revealing, leaving the house without permission,
or being seen in the presence of male non-relatives,
may invoke lethal force to avenge the insult to
the family “honor.” Scholars have analyzed these
killings as violation of CEDAW obligations in
countries such as Jordan, where the domestic law
still treats honor killers lightly (Arnold 2001).
A superficial analysis of the text of a convention
for applicability to women is only the first step in
determining whether an agreement might be help-
ful for female concerns, including those of Muslim
women. Once a multilateral convention or treaty is
finalized, it must “enter into force,” to have any
significance. This occurs once a certain number
of states designated in the treaty have accepted
the agreement (art. 24(1), Vienna Convention). In
many instances, a country signifies that it is willing
overview 307to be bound by “signing,” “ratifying,” “accepting,”
“approving,” or “acceding” to it (art. 11). There are
some agreements that are not yet in force for lack
of signatories or ratifications. For example, the
Protocol to the Banjul Charter for the Establish-
ment of the African Human Rights Court was
adopted in 1998, but had not yet entered into force
as of April 2003, since it only had 6 of the 15 rati-
fications it needed. Such a court might have juris-
diction over situations where African countries
prioritize customary or religious practices that dis-
criminate against women over their obligations
under the Banjul Charter on Human and Peoples’
Rights.
The most accepted treaty in the world is the
Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC),
which has been ratified by every country, except the
United States and Somalia. This convention applies
irrespective of the child or parent’s gender and
specifically uses male and female pronouns
throughout the agreement (CRC, art. 2).
States do not have to completely accept all
aspects of an agreement, which is one reason why
the wide variety of states have been able to join so
many conventions. They have the opportunity to
make exceptions to their ratification of a treaty by
issuing a “reservation,” “declaration,” “understand-
ing,” or “clarification.” A reservation, for exam-
ple, “excludes or modifies the legal effect of certain
provisions of the treaty in their application to that
State” (art. 2 (d), Vienna Convention). Reserva-
tions are generally allowed unless the treaty pro-
hibits them, or only permits certain types, or they
are “incompatible with the object and purpose” of
the treaty, the latter being very difficult to deter-
mine in many instances (art. 19). Unfortunately, the
treaty with the most reservations is CEDAW, most
of which exempt the states from complying with
any provision that undercuts their existing customs
or religion (Clark 1991). Since most gender dis-
crimination is based upon patriarchal customs and
religious practices, these kinds of reservations gut
the treaty. States gain approbation from the inter-
national community for joining the treaty, yet in
reality have committed themselves to nothing more
than they were already doing.
Many of the Muslim states that have ratified
CEDAW have made such reservations. For ex-
ample, Egypt’s reservation states that it complies
with Article 2, condemning discrimination against
women, but only to the extent that it does not con-
flict with Islamic Sharì≠a law (Brandt and Kaplan
1995–6, Multilateral Treaties 1995). Kuwait rati-
fied CEDAW, but made a reservation justifying
the continued failure to permit women to vote.