The Istanbul Convention: Iusfeminist analysis of the first binding European instrument on gender based violence

Abstract

The Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (2011) is the first binding and specific instrument against gender based violence in Europe. In this sense, it contributes to the harmonization of the legal and programmatic frameworks of the EU member states that have ratified it. In order to develop a European Directive against gender based violence, a thesis defended by the author of this article, the analysis of the text of the Convention from an iusfeminist perspective is a useful and necessary task. This exercise shows that the Convention has a hybrid approach different from the one at use in the field of violence against women at the international level. At the same time, it adopts a clearly feminist and partially intersectional due to the way it defines this violence as a subordiscrimination and how it takes into account the needs of migrant
women and asylum seekers.