Feb. 2nd, 2017, Law Faculty doctoral student Laima Vaigė defended her dissertation in English: Violence Against Women Under International Law: Filling the Gaps at International, Regional and National Levels.

The PhD dissertation assesses the gaps of legal regulation on protection and prevention of violence against women. It concentrates on procedural, conceptual and substantive challenges that arise at the international, regional and national levels.

First, the focus is on the alleged normative gaps in international law, and conceptual, as well as substantial problems of legal regulation on protection against violence at the level of international law. It also critically assesses the suggested draft UN Convention on Violence Against Women (2015).

Vaigė suggests that the current text of the Convention does not sufficiently address the existing gaps.

In the second part of the dissertation, Vaigė analyses the regional legal regulation on VAW. She focuses on the aspects of protection and prevention in order to evaluate the extent of states’ due diligence obligations in these areas, as well as critically assess the remaining gaps.

Vaigė provides insights on the ways that the complex regional system of European law could provide more comprehensive protection against VAW.

Finally, she analyses domestic compliance with international law. Vaigė focuses on the key problems in protection and prevention of VAW and evaluates the compliance of Lithuanian legal regulation on VAW against international standards.

There are recommendations on further development of Lithuanian law to ensure better protection of women against violence.