The 11th meeting of the Committee of the Parties to the Istanbul Convention was held in Strasbourg in hybrid format on 7 December 2021.
During the meeting, the Committee adopted recommendations on the implementation of the Istanbul Convention for three state parties: Poland, San Marino and Slovenia.
It also adopted its first set of conclusions in respect of Albania, Austria, Denmark and Monaco as the result of its process of supervising the implementation of such recommendations at the end of the three-year reporting period. Earlier this year, at its 10th meeting, the Committee had agreed on a framework to supervise the implementation of recommendations to states parties to further the implementation of the convention. Since then, the first group of four states reported back to the Committee to adopt its conclusions, also based on additional information submitted by civil society and a national human rights institution.
The Committee elected Ms Maria Rún Bjarnadóttir as the latest member to join the Council of Europe’s Group of experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (GREVIO). The Committee also elected its new bureau, composed of Marie Fontanel, Ambassador, Permanent Representative of France elected as Chair, Domenik Wanger, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Permanent Representative of Liechtenstein, elected as First Vice-Chair and Andrej Slapničar, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Permanent Representative of Slovenia, as Second Vice-Chair.
Finally, the Committee of the Parties took note of a new study assessing the relevance of the Istanbul Convention and the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime (Budapest Convention) in addressing online and technology-facilitated violence against women which was presented at the meeting, allowing for a thematic debate on the extent to which these two international treaties can complement each other in dynamic ways.
