The General Assembly,
 
      Bearing in mind that one of the purposes of the United Nations, as
stated in Articles 1 and 55 of the Charter, is to promote universal respect
for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction of any
kind, including distinction as to sex,
 
      Affirming that women and men should participate equally in social,
economic and political development, should contribute equally to such
development and should share equally in improved conditions of life,
 
      Recalling the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, adopted by the
World Conference on Human Rights on 25 June 1993, in which the Conference
reaffirmed that the human rights of women and the girl child were an
inalienable, integral and indivisible part of universal human rights,
 
      Welcoming the growing number of States parties to the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, which now stands at
one hundred and fifty-four,
 
      Having considered the reports of the Committee on the Elimination of
Discrimination against Women on its fourteenth and fifteenth sessions,
 
      Noting that the number of reports to the Committee has increased as a
result of the growing number of States parties to the Convention and that the
annual session of the Committee has been the shortest of all the annual
sessions of the human rights treaty bodies, thus creating a considerable
backlog of reports submitted but not considered,
 
      1.    Urges all States that have not yet ratified or acceded to the
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women to
do so as soon as possible, so that universal ratification of the Convention
can be achieved by the year 2000;
 
      2.    Emphasizes the importance of full compliance by States parties
with their obligations under the Convention;
 
      3.    Urges States to limit the extent of any reservations they lodge to
the Convention, to formulate any such reservations as precisely and as
narrowly as possible, to ensure that no reservations are incompatible with the
object and purpose of the Convention or otherwise incompatible with
international treaty law, to review their reservations regularly with a view
to withdrawing them and to withdraw reservations that are contrary to the
object and purpose of the Convention or that are otherwise incompatible with
international treaty law;
 
      4.    Invites States parties to the Convention to make all possible
efforts to submit their reports on the implementation of the Convention in
accordance with article 18 thereof and with the guidelines provided by the
Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and to cooperate
fully with the Committee in the presentation of their reports;
 
      5.    Urges States parties to the Convention to take appropriate
measures so that acceptance of the amendment to article 20, paragraph 1, of
the Convention by a two-thirds majority of States parties can be reached as
soon as possible in order for the amendment to enter into force;
 
      6.    Approves the request made by the Committee and supported by the
States parties to the Convention for additional meeting time so as to allow
the Committee to hold two sessions annually, each of three weeks' duration,
preceded by a pre-session working group, for an interim period starting in
1997;
 
      7.    Welcomes the report of the Open-ended Working Group on the
Elaboration of a Draft Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination
of All Forms of Discrimination against Women of the Commission on the Status
of Women;
 
      8.    Decides to authorize the Open-ended Working Group to meet for ten
working days, in parallel with the Commission on the Status of Women at its
forty-first session;
 
      9.    Requests the Secretary-General to submit to the General Assembly
at its fifty-third session a report on the status of the Convention and the
implementation of the present resolution.