María de los Ángeles González Carreño v. Ministry of Justice

Abstract

The ruling of the Spanish Supreme Court in Judgment No. 1263/2018, recognizing, for the first time, the binding character of the Views of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW Committee), augmented the normative authority of the Views of the human rights treaty monitoring body, not only at the domestic level, but also within the international legal sphere. In the Judgment, the Spanish highest court held that the government must comply with the Views of the CEDAW Committee as a matter of the state's constitutional mandate as well as its international obligations. The Court's interpretation in this case meets the expectation of human rights treaty monitoring bodies that states are obligated to respond to their Views concerning individual communications, despite some states parties’ claims to the contrary.