The House Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight held a hearing last week to discuss House Resolution 146 which concerns the United States’ responsibility regarding the United Nations Security Resolution 1325. The introduction to the resolution states: “Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the United States should take action to meet its obligations, and to ensure that all other member states of the United Nations meet their obligations, to women as agreed to in United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 relating to women, peace, and security, and the United States should fully assume the implementation of international law relating to human rights that protects the rights of women and girls during and after conflicts, and for other purposes.”
The problem is that the United States has not agreed to the obligations of the UN Security Resolution 1325. That UN Resolution refers to numerous UN treaties. The United States has made no commitments to those treaties. For instance, we have not ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) or the Convention on the Rights of the Child. We have withdrawn from the International Criminal Court.
The United States is not obligated to meet any commitments under these agreements nor do we have any of the obligations that are mentioned in H.Res.146.
It is important to note exactly WHY the United States has chosen NOT to make these commitments.
At the outset, it should be stated unequivocally that in the United States equal rights are protected under the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The human rights provisions of the U.N. treaties are already available to citizens in the United States. We emphatically support the human rights of women and girls. The so-called “Women’s Rights” movement and “gender-mainstreaming” effort have policy implications far beyond human rights concerns. The issue in regard to the U.N. treaties is a matter of national sovereignty, a matter of quotas and a matter of the specific provisions of the various treaties that would challenge the laws and culture of the United States.
For America, there are significant problems associated with CEDAW -- the major treaty in 1325.
- CEDAW supersedes national sovereignty. The single condition that the founding fathers laid out for treaties was that they had to be constitutional. CEDAW violates that basic requirement. CEDAW could supersede all federal and state laws, as evidenced by past federal court rulings.
- CEDAW
Janice Shaw Crouse
Janice Shaw Crouse is a former speechwriter for George H. W. Bush and now political commentator for the Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee.
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