Ensuring women’s property rights has long been seen as essential to ensuring their enjoyment of other human rights, from personal safety to economic development. The expert committee that interprets and seeks to enforce the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) has over the years developed a unique body of jurisprudence interpreting the convention’s requirement that women enjoy property rights equal to those of men. What is surprising is that this jurisprudence – which encompasses the right to contract, administer property, access credit and government benefits, make use of agricultural land, access adequate housing, and more – has received very little attention from scholars. Law Professor José E. Alvarez, director of the U.S.-Asia Law Institute at NYU Law School, will explain what he calls CEDAW’s “progressive property jurisprudence.”

The women’s movement in the Republic of Korea has been one of the most active and impactful in the region. South Korea joined CEDAW in 1984 and ratified its optional protocol in 2006. The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family has led important reforms. But women activists are now facing a severe backlash, and the ministry itself is under attack. Korean feminist activist OH Kyung-jin will discuss the history and development of the women’s movement, the role played by CEDAW in its achievements, and the factors that have produced the current backlash against women’s rights activism.

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) is one of the most widely embraced international conventions, ratified by 189 states including states in East Asia. But what impact has it had on the actual lives of women in East Asia?

Over the last decade, a growing number of countries have adopted new laws and other mechanisms to address a gap in national criminal legal systems: the absence of meaningful procedures to raise post-conviction claims of factual innocence. These legal and policy reforms have responded to a global surge of exonerations facilitated by the growth of national innocence organizations that increasingly collaborate across borders. These developments have occurred with little direct help from international law. Although many treaties recognize extensive fair trial and appeal rights, no international human rights instrument—in its text, existing interpretation, or implementation—explicitly and fully recognizes the right to assert a claim of factual innocence. This omission is international law’s innocence gap. This panel will present its analysis of the gap and discuss ways to address it.