The Istanbul Convention in Central and Eastern Europe
Presentation of the Special Issue of Osteuropa Recht

Online-Diskussion

International Women’s Day played an important role in socialist Eastern European countries. Today, women’s rights are heavily contested in many of these states.

The journal Osteuropa Recht 1/2022 discusses the implementation and the controversies around the “Istanbul Convention” (the “Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence”, hereinafter “the Convention”) in Central and Eastern Europe. It is striking that resistance and protest to the Convention is particularly strong in Central and Eastern Europe.

In this journal presentation the authors of the special issue will shed light on these developments. They seek to better understand the criticism towards the Convention, the nature and dynamics of the condemnation in Central and Eastern Europe and to reconstruct the process of contestation. They discuss the legal arguments and instruments to reject the Convention in the different countries and compare the role of courts and other legal institutions within the contestation process.

While most articles of the special issue were prepared before the Russian invasion of Ukraine started, the discussion also touches the topic of women’s rights in times of war. It is interesting that Putin not only used anti-feminism and anti-genderism to consolidate his power over the years. He also justified the current war by accusing the West of destroying Russian traditional values by the enforcement of Western values and rights, obviously referring to the Council of Europe.

Please register via: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwsdOGtrzgtG9ZnaoZ1j2QMulvbsBrHlI0y

Panelists:
Monika Płatek, Warsaw
Marianna Murayeva, Helsinki
Radosveta Vassileva, London
Tímea Drinóczi/ Lídia Balogh, Belo Horizonte/ Budapest

Caroline von Gall, Frankfurt (chair)

See the online version of the special issue here: https://www.nomos-elibrary.de/10.5771/0030-6444-2022-1/oer-osteuropa-recht-jahrgang-68-2022-heft-1