The Far Side of Women’s Participatory Rights as the Dark Side of the Moon: The Unseen Article 8 CEDAW

The present research started from the legal analysis of women’s participatory rights in leadership positions in public and political life, as enshrined in the United Nations (UN) Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), under Article 7 – for the national level, and Article 8 – for the international level, and their implementation by State Parties (SPs) as presented in the Reports and Concluding Observations (COs) of the CEDAW Committee especially in relation with legislated gender quotas, which are in practice examples of temporary special measures defined under Article 4(1) CEDAW. In fact, the second part of the research focused on the analysis of legislated gender quotas in all the CEDAW SPs.  Lastly, and probably most importantly, we have always been very keen on keeping our research rooted in reality, thus we conducted interviews with women in leadership positions in public and political life, who have advanced their careers to the international level and became members of the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC).  

The structure of the present working paper is developed from and mirrors the division in songs of Pink Floyd’s album The Dark Side of the Moon at half a century (2023) from its release in 1973, as a metaphor - a methodological device – in the humble attempt to offer a different, original and catchy interpretation of Articles 7 and 8 CEDAW Convention, adopted in 1979. In my view, the Convention and the Album share a number of similarities (explained throughout the paper) and are the products and results of movements demanding the protection of human rights, especially civil and political rights in the ‘70s – the feminist movement being the one which has specifically led to the adoption of the CEDAW Convention.