International Women's Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific

Guidelines for Submission of Information: Communications Procedure

When preparing a communication to the CEDAW Committee, from the outset, it is highly recommended that the following points be considered:

To get started:

Ensure that the State party involved is a party to both the CEDAW Convention and its Optional Protocol.

Ensure that the communication is submitted by, or on behalf of, an individual or group of individuals under the jurisdiction of a state that is party to the CEDAW Convention and its Optional Protocol.

If a communication is submitted on behalf of an individual or group of individuals, their consent is necessary. Otherwise, their lack of consent must be justifiable.

How to submit:

The communication must be in writing.

Ensure that the communication is not anonymous.

Be complete in all submissions. If the communication lacks detail, the Secretariat of the CEDAW Committee (i.e. the Division for the Advancement of Women) may seek more information from the author, causing considerable delay to the process.

Submit the case in a working language of the Committee (English, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese or Arabic).

Communications may be sent by fax or email (and should be in cases requiring specific urgent action) but such communications cannot be registered until the signed original has been received by the Secretariat.

The alleged violation(s):

Must involve a right(s) that is protected by the CEDAW Convention.

The facts of the communication must disclose discrimination based on sex or gender.

The communication must also describe the violation in detail and be supported by as much evidence as possible.

Other important criteria to meet:

All domestic remedies – i.e. attempts to obtain legal, administrative, legislative, policy and programme solutions at the national level – should normally have been exhausted and evidence of this provided as well. If domestic remedies have not been used, the CEDAW Committee will want to know why.

The communication must not be the same as that which is being or has been examined by another procedure of international investigation or settlement.

If the communication is based on a continuing violation that occurred prior to but continued after the date on which the Optional Protocol came into force for the State party concerned, these facts should be presented and explained to the CEDAW Committee.

Interim measures (i.e. emergency actions) are permissible but must be justified

A note on timeframes:

The communications procedure is monitored by the Secretariat and the Working Group on Communications, with the aim being to process submissions as efficiently and quickly as possible. While authors can assist by being complete and comprehensive in all the information submitted, it is important to note that it remains a lengthy procedure, relying on correspondence and exchange of information between the Secretariat, the Working Group on Communications, the CEDAW Committee, the author/individual and the State party. Experience of other treaty bodies indicates that full consideration of a communication by a UN Committee can take up to 2 years.

Source: The CEDAW Committee (E/CN.6/2002/CRP.1)