The UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and its Optional Protocol

Patricia Schulz practiced law in Geneva, and worked for the ILO and the Geneva Law Faculty (constitutional law). She headed the Swiss Federal Office for Gender Equality (1994-2010) and represented Switzerland internationally. While in the CEDAW Committee (2011-2018), she held various positions as Rapporteur, Chair of the Working Group on Communications and of the WG on Working Methods. She was part of the Board of UNRISD and is now a Senior Research Associate there. Bilingual in English and French, she has published articles and chapters in legal publications, regularly gives lectures, and participates in trainings and media programmes on gender equality issues. Ruth Halperin-Kaddari is Professor of Law and Founding Academic Director of the Rackman Center for the Advancement of Women at Bar-Ilan University, Israel, where she teaches and writes on family law, feminist critique of law, and international women's rights. Between 2007 and 2018 she was a member of CEDAW, during which she was twice Vice-Chair, chaired the Working Group on Inquiries, and headed the Inquiry against the UK regarding the restrictive abortion regime in Northern Ireland. She is a recipient of numerous national and international grants and prizes, and in 2018 she was named on Apolitical's 100 most influential people in gender policy around the world. Marsha A. Freeman, PhD, JD, retired in 2021 from the University of Minnesota, where she was Director of the International Women's Rights Action Watch (IWRAW) and an adjunct professor of law. Dr. Freeman is editor of Assessing the Status of Women, a guide for reporting under the Convention. She has published numerous articles and reports on the Convention's content and application, and was co-editor of the first edition of the Commentary. Beate Rudolf, Dr. iur., Professor of Law, is Director of the German Institute for Human Rights, the National Human Rights Institution of Germany. From 2016 to 2019, she also chaired the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI). She was Junior Professor of Public Law and Equality Law at the Faculty of Law of Freie Universität Berlin (2003-2009), a member of the Network of Legal Experts on Gender Equality of the European Commission, vice-president of the European Women Lawyers Association (EWLA), member of the ILA Committee Feminism in International Law, and co-author of the first edition of the Commentary.