Melanne Verveer: “Women's equality has rightly been called the 'moral imperative of the 21st century.'”

All those benefits of women's full economic participation I mentioned earlier--stronger, more stable societies--are also in our national interest.

It is a powerful tool, and I hope that the United States can finally put it in our human rights arsenal as well.

This is not the time for the United States to be absent from such an important forum.

Our failure to ratify has denied women and girls around the world U.S. leadership on the implementation of CEDAW.