A/HRC/26/38 rapporteur on violence against women, an optional protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, and importantly, the creation of a convention on violence against women. 9. The draft declaration was submitted to the CSW at its thirty-sixth session, held in Vienna in 1992, and draft resolution V on violence against women in all its forms was submitted to the Economic and Social Council for adoption.6 The draft resolution called for an intersessional working group to be convened to further develop a draft declaration on violence against women. That meeting was held in 1992. The draft declaration was reintroduced at the thirty-seventh session of the CSW, in 1993, in a report of the SecretaryGeneral.7 In its resolution 1993/10, the Economic and Social Council urged the General Assembly to adopt the draft declaration on the elimination of violence against women, and in resolution 1993/26, the Council urged governments to give their full support to the adoption of the draft declaration. The 1993 World Conference on Human Rights also called for the adoption of the draft declaration.8 The Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women was adopted without a vote by the General Assembly in resolution 48/104, in December 1993. Since then, the Declaration has served as the primary normative framework for the work of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women. 10. It has been argued that an optional protocol or a new convention on violence against women should be viewed as long-term measures to be implemented if the general recommendations of CEDAW, the Declaration and the Special Rapporteur proved ineffective.9 Others have argued that the Declaration, as opposed to a convention on the elimination of violence against women, was adopted because of fears of confusion between the scope of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and a new binding treaty on violence against women; fears that a new binding instrument might run the risk of limited ratification; and also because of concerns about the expense of implementing a new binding instrument.10 11. The CSW has focused on the issue of violence against women and/or girls as a priority theme on three occasions: the theme of gender-based persecution was the focus of its forty-second session, in 1998; the elimination of all forms of discrimination and violence against the girl child was addressed at its fifty-first session, in 2007; and the elimination and prevention of all forms of violence against women and girls was considered at its fiftyseventh session, in 2013. 12. The agreed conclusions adopted by the CSW at its 1998, 2007 and 2013 sessions11 share several commonalities. With regard to the provision of services, the 2013 conclusions 6 7 8 9 10 11 E/1992/24-E/CN.6/1992/13, chap. I, sect. A. E/CN.6/1993/12. Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (A/CONF.157/23), part II, para 38. See Jutta Joachim, “Shaping the Human Rights Agenda: The Case of Violence against Women”, in Gender Politics in Global Governance, Mary K. Meyer and Elisabeth Prugl, eds. (Lanham, Maryland, Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), pp. 142–160. See, in general, Joan Fitzpatrick, “The Use of International Human Rights Norms to Combat Violence Against Women”, in Human Rights of Women: National and International Perspectives, Rebecca Cook, ed. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994), pp. 532-571; and Hilary Charlesworth and Christine Chinkin, “Violence against women: a global issue”, in Women, Male Violence and the Law 13, Julie Stubbs, ed. (Sydney, Institute of Criminology Monograph Series, No. 6, 1994). Commission on the Status of Women, conclusions on women and armed conflict (see E/1998/27E/CN.6/1998/12); agreed conclusions on the elimination of all forms of discrimination and violence against the girl child (see E/2007/27-E/CN.6/2007/9); agreed conclusions on the elimination and prevention of all forms of violence against women (see E/2013/27-E/CN.6/2013/11). 5