WITHDRAWAL FROM THE ISTANBUL CONVENTION IN THE CONTEXT OF THE EUROPEAN INTEGRATION ASPIRATIONS OF THE REPUBLIC OF TÜRKIYE

Abstract

The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence opened for signature in 2011 in Istanbul, Türkiye, and has been known as the most comprehensive international agreement advocating the prevention, prosecution, and elimination of violence against women and domestic violence. As of September 2022, 44 CoE member states, including all the EU countries, as well as the European Union itself as an international organization, are signatories to the Convention. The 2017 official signing of the Convention by the EU as a whole testified to the acceptance by Brussels of the former’s role as of an authoritative international legal instrument establishing all-European norms in this area. The degree of Türkiye’s involvement in its instrumentalization naturally derives from the international agreement’s unofficial name – the Istanbul Convention. The Republic of Türkiye was the first country to sign the Convention in 2011 with a unanimous vote of the parliament, and later in 2012 expressed its consent to be bound hereby. The decision of President Erdoğan to denounce the international agreement bearing the name of Türkiye’s largest city, adopted in 2021, has caused surprise and concern amid the international political and human rights community. The European Union was no exception; the move has been interpreted as a negative signal in terms of the state’s commitment to its obligations to ensuring the rights of women and girls, as well as guaranteeing basic human rights, democracy, and the rule of law at large, given Türkiye’s status of EU membership candidate. Meanwhile, the so-called Istanbul Convention has not yet passed the ratification procedure in individual EU countries, as well as within the European Union per se. Likewise, the Convention’s international legal stance remains volatile since most participating states have granted it the status as part of national legislation with a number of reservations. This article addresses the following question: whether Türkiye’s withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention may be considered a demonstrative political message of official Ankara impeding the country’s European integration aspirations.