A/HRC/44/52/Add.1 in which it declared that the Istanbul Convention was incompatible with the Constitution (article 3 (c) and article 4 (3)).1 The Court also found that “despite its undeniable positive aspects, the Convention is internally contradictory and the meaning of some of its provisions goes beyond the Convention’s stated purposes and its title”. According to the Court, the Convention adopts the terms “gender” and “gender identity”, highlighting their social dimension, and that “distancing” of the term “gender” from the biological aspect, “blurs the differences between the sexes and thus deprives the principle of equality of any real meaning”. However, it should be noted that the terms “gender” and “gender identity” had already been introduced into Bulgarian legal system but had not been properly translated, discussed or applied. The term “gender”, for instance, was already present in the Equality between Men and Women Act of 2016. The judgment of the Constitutional Court stopped the ratification process of the Convention for the time being. 7. The visit of the Special Rapporteur took place in the context created by the failure to ratify the Istanbul Convention and the disappointment of many interlocutors, including government officials, that the Constitutional Court had blocked the process, with many feeling that nothing else could be done while the pushback against women’s rights continued. The Special Rapporteur expresses her hope that the current stalemate can be overcome. 8. During her meetings with government officials and other stakeholders, the failure to ratify the Istanbul Convention was discussed, as well as its relevance for the improvement of the legal framework on preventing and combating violence against women. 9. The Special Rapporteur found that the blocking of the ratification of the Istanbul Convention and the ongoing “anti-gender campaign” could be partially attributed to the lack of a consistent translation of the term “gender” in the Bulgarian language, on which she would like to offer her analysis and the reasons for her recommendation that the Istanbul Convention be ratified. In its analysis of the compatibility of the Istanbul Convention, in particular article 4 (3), which enumerates both “gender” and “gender identity” as grounds for non-discrimination, the Court used the translation of “social gender” (социален пол), whereas for all other articles of the Istanbul Convention and in other United Nations and European Union instruments and directives, the term “gender” was translated as “sex” (пол). 10. By doing this, the concept of gender-based violence was misinterpreted and portrayed as a “new foreign concept”, despite the fact that the term “gender” is well established in the international human rights framework. The Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women of 1993 uses the term “gender-based violence” against women as does the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women in its general recommendations No. 19 (1992) on violence against women and No. 35 (2017) on gender-based violence against women.2 Moreover, the judgment of the Constitutional Court did not take into account nor refer to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women as a legally binding instrument. It was ratified by Bulgaria in 1982 and according to Bulgarian constitutional provisions, it is directly applicable and considered part of its national legal system. In fact, the obligations to prevent violence against women and provide adequate services and reparation, which are the core of the Istanbul Convention, are already established in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, as explained in the Committee’s general recommendations No. 19 and No. 35 (para. 9), as well as in general recommendation No. 28 (2010) on the core obligations of States parties under article 2 of the Convention. 11. The term “gender” and “gender-based violence” are standard terms in European Union law, in particular directive 2012/29/EU establishing minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime that all member States, including 1 2 4 Constitutional Court case 3/2018, decision adopted on 27 July 2018. Gender-based violence is defined general recommendation No. 35 as “violence which is directed against a woman because she is a woman or that affects women disproportionately” and, as such, is a violation of their human rights (para. 1).