The Istanbul Convention – Legislating for Internationally Ratified Misandry
‘In an astonishing example of 21st century newspeak, the IC also insisted that discriminatory measures should not be considered to be discrimination: “Special measures that are necessary to prevent and protect women from gender-based violence shall not be considered discrimination under the terms of this Convention”’
Sean Parker
January 12, 2023
I was living and working in Istanbul in 2011, and remember the commotion surrounding the Istanbul Convention – henceforth IC – being held in the city that year. The celebration was loudest among the progressive left, mostly the university-educated and expats, and what struck me at the time was how incongruous to have such a convention held in a city in the grip of strongman president Recep Tayyip Erdogan – not well-known for his support of women’s rights (or anyone else’s rights, for that matter).
A European landmark treaty supposedly to end violence against women, the IC entered into force on 1 August 2014. The IC recognised violence against women as a violation of human rights and a form of discrimination against women, and only women. It covered various forms of gender-based violence against women, which referred to violence directed against women because they are women, or violence being claimed to disproportionately affect them.
In 2021, original IC host country Turkey withdrew from the convention after denouncing it in March 2021. The convention ceased to be effective in Turkey on 1 July 2021, following its denunciation. The main complaints related to concern about the specific ‘gender ideology’, which they argued was in direct opposition to its constitution. Other countries have also not ratified the agreement.
The European Union signed but did not ratify. The UK signed the Istanbul Convention in 2012, but it quickly became apparent that the UK’s domestic laws were not appropriate to meeting its requirements, possibly being seen as counter-intuitive. In a report published in 2015, the UK parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights highlighted a number of issues that needed to be resolved.
The EU Charter of Human Rights is the foundation of the policies of the European Union, and of European society itself. However a review revealed that the IC in fact represented a historic threat to the human rights of Europeans. While at the time of its signing everything seemed ‘progressive’ enough, the fact was that the IC was based merely on a social theory which ascribed domestic violence to a power imbalance between men and women that arose from supposedly ‘patriarchal’ beliefs.
This model of domestic violence has been heavily criticised as a theory that is ideologically based, rather than empirically supported. Hundreds of research findings exist that undermine the exclusivity of the gendered perspective. In an astonishing example of 21st century Newspeak, the IC also insists that discriminatory measures should not be considered to be discrimination:
“Special measures that are necessary to prevent and protect women from gender-based violence shall not be considered discrimination under the terms of this Convention” (IC Article 4).
The IC regularly confuses the words ‘complainant’ and ‘victim’ in the manner of the mainstream media on a regular and increasing basis, thereby short-changing the defendant’s right to an impartial investigation and adjudication. There is a certain irony that a treaty that claims to advance human rights in fact serves to deny a person’s fundamental rights.
This conflation of these terms further extends the transatlantic ‘believe the victim’ policies at play throughout the 2010s and into the 2020s, only being brought to a (cultural at least) halt by the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard libel trial verdict – comprehensively finding in Depp’s favour. It was suddenly clear to the world why self-identified ‘victims’ should absolutely not automatically be believed. High profile cases such as this show how ratifying the Istanbul Convention, and its one-eyed view of allegations of domestic violence, would do nothing less than completely reverse recent positive progress in equality of the sexes.