The Ratification of CEDAW and the Liberalization of Abortion Laws

Do international treaties lead to cross-national increases in women's rights? In contrast to Asal, Brown, and Figueroa's (2008) suggestion that the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) is not an important factor in explaining the liberalization of abortion rights polices, this article argues that the treaty contributes to increases in abortion rights when the terms of ratification are disaggregated. Previous excursions into this question have only considered whether a state has ratified the treaty, which is problematic from both a methodological and theoretical standpoint given that many states ratified with conditions, while only six states did not ratify at all. Additionally, some states ratified the Optional Protocol and some have not. We demonstrate that the disaggregation of levels of treaty ratification is associated with increases in women's rights in a model replicating that of Asal, Brown, and Figueroa. Further, we extend our knowledge of the dynamics of treaty ratification through the use of structural equations to more fully model how political, cultural, and economic factors, as well as exogenous international pressures, interact to produce changes in women's rights around the world.