The legal regime for international human rights has always been conceived as universal – that is, as applying to every human being. As time passed, however, it became clear to specific groups of activists how it would help their cause were these rights to be institutionalized for specific vulnerable groups. Racial minorities, women, and children were to be protected by waves of obligations that not only formalized earlier treaties, such as the ICCPR and ICESCR, but also addressed concerns specific to these groups. This chapter asks whether and how the CEDAW has improved the rights chances of women around the world.

In the previous chapter, the ICCPR was shown to be associated with improvements in the delivery of civil and political rights, though these findings were hardly uniform. The strongest effects were found not in the stable autocracies or the stable democracies, but rather in those countries in which only moderate levels of democracy exist or that experienced a transition (whether liberal or illiberal).