ABSTRACT
Article 5 of the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (the Istanbul Convention) enshrines the standard of due diligence to frame States’ obligations. This standard has been generally uncritically endorsed in the existing literature on violence against women because it has played a crucial role in the recognition of this violence as a human rights violation. This chapter offers a different and more critical perspective. It is an in-depth inquiry into the meaning of the due diligence standard, its limits and any reasons to be cautious about it. It explores how due diligence has been framed in the Istanbul Convention. The chapter clarifies that, in general, the European Court of Human Rights does not use the concept of due diligence; rather, violence against women can trigger States’ positive human rights obligations. The chapter underlines that all positive obligations are not obligations of due diligence and calls for better sensitivity between these two standards. The main argument is that it is important to be sensitive to the nuances and differences between the two frameworks. A general reference to the due diligence standard, as can be found in Article 5 of the Istanbul Convention, poses the danger of ignoring these nuances.
