The Eu’S Commitment To Combatting Violence Against Women: Rhetoric Or Reality?

Catherine Briddick, Martin James Departmental Lecturer inwards Gender in addition to Forced Migration at the Refugee Studies Centre of the University of Oxford - @CateBriddick

Background

The European Union has, at its heart, a legal commitment to fighting discrimination, including that based on sex, in addition to to promote gender equality. It has however, been dependent area to sustained in addition to justified criticism for its failure(s) to alive upward to these commitments, peculiarly inwards relation to its handling of migrant in addition to refugee women. The proclamation past times the Commission inwards 2016 that the European Union would sign in addition to conclude (ratify) the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing in addition to Combatting Violence Against Women (the Istanbul Convention) was, therefore, warmly received past times activists in addition to academics alike.

 

The Istanbul Convention, for readers unfamiliar amongst it, is exclusively the 2nd international, legal musical instrument to focus on violence against women in addition to the role of that violence inwards maintaining women’s inequality. The purposes of the Convention (set out inwards Article 2) are to protect women from all forms of violence in addition to to prevent, prosecute in addition to fifty-fifty eliminate violence against women in addition to domestic violence. To attain these purposes the Convention imposes on Parties a comprehensive hit of obligations including that they:

-          adopt integrated, co-ordinated in addition to properly resourced policies in addition to programmes to challenge gender inequality, monitor in addition to answer to violence against women (Istanbul Convention, Chapter II);

-          prevent violence through education, preparation in addition to awareness-raising (Chapter III);

-          protect in addition to back upward victims via a hit of non-legal in addition to legal measures (Chapters IV, V in addition to VI);

-          investigate, prosecute in addition to punish offenders (Chapter VI);

-          grant autonomous and/or renewable residence permits to migrant women who are victims of violence (Article 59); and,

-          ensure that refugee women’s claims for protection in addition to dealt amongst inwards a gender-sensitive way (Arts threescore in addition to 61).

Significantly, the rights in addition to protections the Convention provides victims are to move secured past times Parties without discrimination on whatsoever ground, including migration or citizenship condition (Article 4(3)).

In forcefulness since 2014, the Convention has, at the fourth dimension of writing, been ratified past times thirty-three States (including Germany, Austria, Denmark, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden in addition to Turkey) in addition to signed past times many others, including the UK.

The EU’s electrical current approach

The Istanbul Convention itself envisages European Union accession (Article 75), something that the European Union tin plow over the axe create to the total extent of its competences, equally this weblog has already discussed. The physical care for to move followed involves the Council, next a Commission proposal in addition to the consent of the European Parliament, adopting a determination which concludes the agreement. The understanding must seat the legal bases for the EU’s accession, bases derived from the EU’s legal competence (its mightiness or power) to human activity inwards a detail field. Once ratified, this understanding is binding on the institutions of the European Union in addition to European Union Member States, to the extent that the European Union has concluded the treaty. You tin plow over the axe read to a greater extent than near this physical care for here.

The EU’s competence inwards relation to violence against women is extremely broad. The legal bases nether the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) identified past times the Commission inwards its UN Convention on the Rights of Persons amongst Disabilities (the CRPD). The Council decision which signed the CRPD signed the Convention equally a whole in addition to took equally its legal footing the EU’s commitment to non-discrimination.

Commentary

Readers of this weblog tin plow over the axe move forgiven for quest if whatsoever of the to a higher house genuinely matters. The obligations that the European Union is planning to assume nether the Istanbul Convention are significant, fifty-fifty if they are to a greater extent than limited than many hoped for in addition to anticipated. European Union activity inwards either of the 2 areas it has signed upward to could yield pregnant improvements inwards the way that violence against women is responded to, at both an European Union in addition to national level.  

Well it does matter, for at to the lowest degree 2 reasons.

First, European Union gratis displace constabulary disadvantages women, including women who have got been dependent area to violence. To accept merely 1 example, equally this weblog in addition to I have got argued, the CJEU’s shameful determination inwards NA (which concerned Article xiii of the Citizens Directive), left a third-country national adult woman whose European Union citizen hubby subjected her to domestic violence in addition to so left the UK, without a secure migration status. Article 59 of the Istanbul Convention requires Parties to grant autonomous and/or renewable residence permits to victims of violence inwards a broader hit of circumstances than that currently provided for past times European Union law, potentially improving the seat of women similar NA whose migration condition is (or was) dependent on their partner. The EU’s determination non to sign upward to this provision agency that women who are dependent area to violence whose migration condition is determined past times European Union constabulary volition maintain to facial expression upward considerable hardship.

Second, the Convention itself in addition to the holistic approach it adopts to violence in addition to discrimination against women have got been attacked in addition to undermined past times States who are either Parties or signatories to it.  Some States, including Poland, Latvia, Republic of Lithuania in addition to Republic of Croatia have got sought to boundary the obligations the Convention imposes past times making impermissible in addition to potentially invalid declarations / reservations to it. In Republic of Bulgaria the physical care for of ratifying the Istanbul Convention has been halted next a controversial sentence from its Constitutional Court that the Convention contradicts Bulgaria’s constitutional protection of women equally mothers. The Commission has expressed delineate organisation near these developments in addition to has sought to encourage States to ratify the Convention fully in addition to without delay, highlighting its ain role equally a potential enforcer of the Convention where European Union competences are involved. The EU’s mightiness to supply either political leadership or legal back upward on these issues is, however, hampered past times its ain partial in addition to highly selective solar daytime of the month amongst the Convention. Not exclusively is the European Union opened upward to allegations of hypocrisy, but its ain actions plow over succour to, rather than challenge, the bear of the real States whose demeanor it seeks to influence.

Can the Council’s seat move challenged?

Whether the Council’s 2 decisions volition genuinely atomic number 82 to the European Union engaging amongst the Istanbul Convention inwards the real limited way described hither is, equally yet, far from clear.  

The European Parliament has stated that it ‘regrets’ the Council’s approach because it raises ‘legal uncertainties equally to the orbit of the EU’s accession, equally good equally concerns regarding the implementation of the Convention’. The Parliament has recommended instead ‘a broad European Union accession to the Convention without whatsoever limitations’. It is non known whether the Parliament’s ‘regret’ volition extent to withholding its understanding to the Council’s decisions.

The decisions could also move dependent area to legal challenge. The Commission has successfully challenged a Council decision to move into into a legal understanding amongst a 3rd province on the grounds that it did non proceed on the right legal bases. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 similar challenge, based on the arguments the Commission advanced inwards its Proposal (as discussed briefly above) or, to a greater extent than persuasively inwards my view, on the grounds that the EU’s legal response to violence against women should move based inwards its commitment to fighting gender activity discrimination, may good yield success.

The Istanbul Convention is monitored in addition to enforced past times a committee, the Group of Experts on Action against Violence against women in addition to Domestic Violence (GREVIO) via a reporting in addition to research procedure. The EU’s approach to the Istanbul Convention could also move challenged past times GREVIO or roughly other Party to it. Article 75 of the Istanbul Convention refers to the Convention equally a whole beingness opened upward for signature, non parts of it whilst Article 73 provides for a dispute machinery to move created if Parties disagree over the application of its provisions.

At the fourth dimension of writing the EU’s (stalled) ratification of the Istanbul Convention is beingness considered past times the Council working political party on Fundamental Rights, Citizens’ Rights in addition to Free Movement of Persons (FREMP). This scrutiny is beingness accompanied past times a concerted, EU-wide campaign inwards back upward of the Istanbul Convention in addition to the EU’s total ratification of it. Over the adjacent few months nosotros volition move able to guess the affect of these processes, equally the European Union proceeds (slowly) to conclude the Convention. We volition so discovery out whether the EU’s rhetoric on violence against women is whatsoever to a greater extent than than that. 

Barnard & Peers: chapter 9, chapter xx

JHA4: chapter I:5

Photo credit: Council of Europe

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