Palestine & the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women: Implications of Ratification All States Parties agree that all the contracts and instruments that have a legal effect aimed at undermining women’s legal capacity are to be considered null and void. Accordingly, article (16) of the Convention affirms: “States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in all matters relating to marriage and family relations and in particular shall ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women: (a) The same right to enter into marriage; (b) The same right to freely choose a spouse and to enter into marriage only with their free and full consent; (c) The same rights and responsibilities during marriage and at its dissolution.” Another important point is that the Personal Status Law allows, in more than one location within the document, the practice of polygamy. Article (28) of the law, for example, covers the issue of a man with four wives or wives within their legally prescribed waiting periods, and that he cannot complete the marriage process with one of them if he is also in the process of divorcing another, and that the divorce process must be concluded before he can marry again. Article (31) of the same law provides another, slightly different example, stating the prohibition of a man to become married to two women who have a “prohibiting blood or wet-nursing relationship between them”, the closeness of that relationship determined by comparison to the same prohibitions on closeness of blood-relationship between a man and a woman planning to marry. These types of articles run counter to the principle of equality under the Convention, especially article (16), which reaffirms “the same right freely to choose a spouse and to enter into marriage only with their free and full consent” and “the same rights and responsibilities as parents, irrespective of their marital status, in matters relating to their children; in all cases the interests of the children shall be paramount”. They also run counter to article (15) of the Convention, which stresses, as mentioned earlier, the importance of women’s equality with men before the law and their identical legal capacity in civil matters, including the exercise of those capacities, especially in cases of concluding contracts, administering property, and procedural practices in courts and tribunals. 31