As of December 22, the Optional Protocol to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women is in effect. Amnesty International praised the occasion as “a landmark for women’s human rights” and promised to “continue to campaign for the ratification of the Optional Protocol.”
The convention empowers the radical Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women to conduct inquiries into grave or systematic treaty violations. The Optional Protocol allows the committee to consider petitions from individual women or groups of women who have exhausted all national avenues to seek redress for gender discrimination. It also forbids any reservation to the convention. The Protocol includes an “opt-out clause”, allowing States upon ratification or accession to declare that they do not accept the inquiry procedure.
UN expert and lawyer Kaye Balmforth, former Director of the World Families Policy Center, told LifeSite in October that the ratifying countries may now be targeted by radical activists seeking to have the committee force the countries to remove any remaining protection of the rights of the unborn. She noted for example that Italy had already been taken to task by the Committee since all the doctors in one hospital refused to abort babies. The committee found this to be a violation of women’s rights. Thus the UN CEDAW Committee was actively ruling out conscience rights for pro-life doctors. Balmforth noted that “there is no reason for any country with its own human rights mechanism to adopt the optional protocol. All it will do is allow activists to bypass national courts. Suggestions too radical to be passed through national legislators will be dictated by the UN. This will do an end run around the democratic will of countries.”
See the Amnesty release at: https://www.web.amnesty.org/web/news.nsf/thisweek/89c06fd22a7547f1802569b5003de22d?OpenDocument