AMERICAN UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW

The author of this article argues that the monitoring of women's right to health under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) is hampered by several factors, including the lesser priority on economic, social and cultural rights, conceptual and methodological problems in monitoring, and severe limitations on the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

This article begins by noting that the elimination of multiple obstacles to equal rights for women embodied in private economic and social relations is a significant accomplishment of human rights protection in Europe. The author notes that the process of eliminating gender discrimination is not easy since governments are obliged not to interfere with freedom but, on the other hand, are obliged to interfere to reduce inequalities between men and women.

This article argues that the right to freedom of expression and information, taken together with a number of other international human rights, has evolved to the point that immediate and concrete obligations are now imposed on governments to provide, and to refrain from interfering with, the communication of information necessary for the protection and promotion of reproductive health and choice.

This article outlines how the HIV/AIDS pandemic is affecting women's human rights and particularly focuses upon the denial of reproductive rights to HIV positive women. The author argues that there exists a gap in ensuring that non-discrimination principles are applied to HIV positive women in order to protect their reproductive rights. The article also reviews developments in international law concerning women's reproductive rights and considerations of human rights and HIV/AIDS.

This article examines the importance of the Vienna, Cairo, and Beijing Conferences to the development of women's human rights. The Vienna Conference provided women's groups the opportunity to promote women's rights as an integral component of human rights and to encourage the strengthening of U.N. mechanisms for enforcing women's human rights.

This short article discusses the Legal Services for Women project started by PROFAMILIA, the Columbian family planning association responsible for about two-thirds of family planning activities in Columbia. "The Legal Services for Women project began in November 1986, with centers that provided women with legal aid, information, education, and counseling about their rights and how to enforce them through litigation. The services concentrated primarily on reproductive health and family matters, including domestic violence.

This article notes that health and human rights impacts of both sexuality and reproductive health are now widely known. It analyzes the role states can and should play in ensuring the realization of women's sexual and reproductive health as part of their responsibility toward the promotion and protection of women's health. In particular, the author discusses how provisions in both the Economic Covenant and the Women's Convention - the potential of which has long been underestimated in this area - could be used to eliminate the causes of gender-related violations of the right to health.

This article notes that empowering women with the ability to regulate and control their fertility is a basic requirement for women's health, well-being and quality of life. It argues that coerced contraception, sterilization or abortion, and coerced motherhood equally deny women the dignity of making reproductive choices. The author notes that the negative impact on health caused by such a violation is equally severe whether it is a result of direct state action or the failure to protect reproductive rights.