Suchergebnisse

Mapping the problem -- The drafting of CEDAW -- Strategies for interpreting CEDAW -- Interpreting gender-based poverty into CEDAW -- The Committee and gender-based poverty -- The working methods of the Committee -- Evolutionary general recommendations -- Envisioning gender-based poverty in CEDAW

The austerity-motivated reforms of the UK benefit system have had a devastating and disproportionate impact on vulnerable groups. Lone mothers are challenging these regulations as discriminatory. Their claims raise an under-theorised question: how should courts adjudicate claims for status equality in the realm of fiscal policy? The courts are adopting a fragmented model of equality that artificially divides status and economic inequalities. This approach fails to fully account for the multiple dimensions of disadvantage at stake in these claims. Using a substantive equality framework, this article uncovers the intertwined status and economic inequalities perpetuated by the benefit reforms. It then proceeds to evaluate how the courts' fragmented approach to equality distorts the justification evaluation. Substantive equality can enrich the justification analysis in a manner that both respects the institutional limits of the court and holds the government to account for discrimination in social benefits.

Little attention has been paid to the monitoring tools of women's socio-economic rights (SER). Can the established monitoring tools used by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) be reformed to detect all of the ways women's SER are undermined or is it more conceptually sound to establish a new gender equality monitoring standard? This article argues for both approaches. Incorporating a gender equality framework into traditional monitoring tools enriches accountability. To detect the complex ways women experience violations of their SER, it is necessary to develop an independent evaluative tool. This article proposes that Sandra Fredman's four-dimensional model of equality be used for monitoring women's rights under the ICESCR.