Defying Convention: US Resistance to the UN Treaty on Women's Rights, published by Cambridge University Press in 2014, appears in Problems in International Politics, a Cambridge series edited by Keith Darden and Ian Shapiro. 
The question that motivates Defying Convention is why the United States has not ratified CEDAW, the United Nations Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. CEDAW is the most important guarantee of rights for women in international law. In order to understand this puzzle, I examine three sets of issues. First, I evaluate non-ratification by the US in a broader historical context of the role that the US government played in shaping the global women’s rights agenda and ultimately in making CEDAW possible. During the United Nations’ first few decades, the US sought to limit the ability of UN agencies to influence domestic policy. Changing geopolitical conditions in the 1970s led American political leaders to support women’s rights issues on the world stage. Support from the US proved pivotal in two relatively minor decisions that had major consequences: holding the Mexico City Conference to celebrate International Women’s Year in 1975, and initiating the process of drafting an international women’s rights treaty.
Second, the book illuminates American debates about ratification of CEDAW by explaining what the treaty entails. A growing body of research maintains that the effectiveness of human rights treaties rests on their ability to empower domestic political actors. My study adds to this literature by highlighting two factors that both reflect and facilitate the participation of domestic actors and may account for the positive effect that CEDAW exerts on women’s rights worldwide: evolution in the treaty itself and the interactions between government officials and treaty experts that take place during the reporting sessions, the meetings where governments present their reports on compliance with the treaty.
Finally, the book examines why has the United States remained immune to the process of diffusion that has led all but six other countries to ratify CEDAW. Through an analysis of twenty-five years of Senate hearings on the Convention, I show that CEDAW has been the focus of increasing opposition over time, reflecting polarization between the Democrats and the Republicans on women’s issues as well as the growing strength of CEDAW in the international arena. I conclude by making the case that CEDAW offers a stronger basis for the legal protection of women from domestic violence than current law provides.
I talk about the book briefly here.
Reviews:
- Eileen Boris on H-Diplo, July 2015.
- Martha Davis, Journal of Human Rights 15, 4 (2016): 571-573.
- Wendy Brien, Academic Council of the United Nations (ACUNS) 6 December 2016.
- Lana Obradovic, International Feminist Journal of Politics 17, 3 (2015): 515-517.
- Jocelyn Olcott, Journal of American Studies 15, 4 (2017): 1295-1297.