The threefold ambiguity in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)

Explicitness of international agreements is a necessary condition when ratifying and joining them, because the consequences of these agreements are based on the way their concepts are conceived. In this paper the ambiguities of the convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) are evaluated "conceptually", "structurally", and "basics". The results show that the convention suffers from essential ambiguities in these three respects. These ambiguities result in the conclusion that countries willing to join the convention do not realize the intentions of the founders of the convention and each country accept the contents based on the mental assumptions of its own society. Different cultures and belief systems understand these concepts differently; therefore, every country should disambiguate these concepts before joining the convention.