Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the Prospect of Development of Muslim Personal Law in Singapore

Abstract

This paper examines Singapore's partial reservations to Articles 2 and 16 of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). It contends that the reservations justified on the basis of protecting the rights of the Muslim minority community to practice its personal law has unwittingly impeded the potential of reviewing and addressing significant gaps and limitations in the ways in which the laws are conceived and administered. More pertinently, the policy reinforces the dominance of traditionalism in the thinking of dominant stakeholders of the law. Taking the standpoint that the values of equality and non-discrimination on the basis of gender espoused by CEDAW are compatible with the objectives of Muslim law, this paper maintains that ratifying the relevant Articles of CEDAW will strengthen the process of the development of the Muslim personal law and address essentialist presumptions of the law. This perspective departs from the dominant discourse on the Muslim law and CEDAW which is framed in terms of conflict and polarity between the law and human rights, religious law and women's rights, and universal values versus cultural relativism.