ABSTRACT
The global commitment to equal human rights for women has progressed rapidly during the last 50 years. This has necessitated a radical departure from the previous practice, embodied in national and international law, of taking lesser rights for women for granted. Suffice to recall the following examples: when the United Nations was established, political rights of women were an exception rather than a rule; when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was being drafted, it was proposed that its first article should read 'All men are brothers'; and protection of maternity in international labour law implicitly discriminated against women by protecting their child-bearing role at the expense of their equal right to work and equal rights in work. With the benefit of hindsight, it is all too easy to criticize such examples, and many more could easily be added. This, however, tells us how much progress has been achieved during the past half-century.
