During the opening of the General Assembly session, countries traditionally promise to sign on to more treaties as part of the UN's annual campaign to support its conventions. This year, however, UN officials are saying that signing on is not enough; Member States need to improve domestic implementation. As part of this year's theme on member state participation and implementation, UN officials have highlighted forty-three treaties that deal with fundamental human rights issues on which they hope to place more attention. All of the featured treaties have either not yet come into force or received universal ratification.
For example, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (Disabilities Convention) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) are two of the highlighted treaties. The Disabilities Convention has over 100 signatories, but still lacks 15 country ratifications to move the treaty into force. On the other hand, while CEDAW has been ratified by 185 countries, Iran, Nauru, Palau, Qatar, Tonga, Somalia, Sudan, and the United States have yet to ratify it. Officials hope that through this year's campaign, treaties such as these will be universally ratified, improving the lives of some of the most marginalized and discriminated against persons in the world.
Compiled from: "Countries Can Do More to Implement International Treaties, says UN Official," UN Daily News from the United Nation News Service, 24 September 2007.