1. Ann Elizabeth Mayer, Islam and Human Rights: Tradition and Politics (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1999); Shaheen Sardar Ali, Gender and Human Rights in Islam and International Law: Equal Before Allah, Unequal Before Man? (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 2000); Jonas Svensson, Women’s Human Rights and Islam: A Study of Three Attempts at Accommodation (Lund University, Sweden: Almqvist and Wiksell, 2000 ).
2. The process of entry into the system of international organizations started in 1929 when the Vatican City joined the World Telegraph Union and the Universal Postal Union. Since 1957, the supreme organ of government of the Roman Catholic Church is uniformly termed the Holy See. As a legal entity, the Holy See obtained status as a Non-Member State Permanent Observer at the United Nations in 1964 when the Secretary General, U. Thant, accepted its self-designation as such. (Switzerland had obtained this status in 1948 ). See Josef Kunz, "The Status of the Holy See in International Law," American Journal of International Law46 (1952): 3 0 8-1 4 (arguing the case for sending a US ambassador to the Holy See). The attribution of statehood to the Holy See appears somewhat anachronistic since the Papal State in central Italy, restored to the Roman pontiff at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, was finally conquered and annexed by Italy in 1870. In 1929 the Lateran treaty, signed by II Duce Benito Mussolini and Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, recognized the papal sovereignty of the Vatican City (0. 4 4 square kilometers or 108.7 acres) in compensation for the loss of the Papal State. See Anika Rahman, "Church or State? The Holy See at the United Nations," Conscience 20 (1999): 2-5
3. David Nolan, "The Catholic Church at the United Nations: Church or State?" Conscience 21 (2000): 4, 20-24.
4. Female reproductive autonomy was established as a human right in international law by the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), in force since 1981, as of 16 July 2001 ratified by 168 states. Article 16, paragraph 1 reads: “States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in all matters relating to marriage and family relations and in particular shall ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women… (e) The same rights to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of their children and to have access to the information, education and means to enable them to exercise these rights.” The Holy See, along with eight Muslim states, has not signed this Convention, nor the 1952 Convention on the Political Rights of Women. The US has signed but not ratified CEDAW, mainly because of political pressure from Protestant fundamentalism.
5. Elissavet Stamatopolou, “Women’s Rights and the United Nations,” in Women’s Rights, Human Rights: International Feminist Perspectives ed. Julie Peters and Andrea Wolper (London: Routledge, 1995), 36–48; Rebecca J. Cook, “International Human Rights and Women’s Reproductive Health,” in Women’s Rights, Human Rights 256–75; Susan D. Rose, “Christian Fundamentalism: Patriarchy, Sexuality, and Human Rights,” in Religious Fundamentalisms and the Human Rights of Women ed. Courtney W. Howland (London: Macmillan, 1999), 9–20; Ann Elizabeth Mayer, “Religious Reservations to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women: What Do They Really Mean,” in Religious Fundamentalisms and the Human Rights of Women 105–16.