Gender Equality MARCH 2020 Gender Equality | Page 5

reservations were withdrawn on September 1999 in expectation of the then-proposed amendments
to the Turkish Civil Code and the declaration to article 9 of the Convention was withdrawn as of 29
January 2008 due to the amendments to the Turkish Nationality Law.
Although the reservation of Turkey to the first clause of 29. article of CEDAW saying that “any
dispute between two or more States Parties concerning the interpretation or application of the
present Convention which is not settled by negotiation shall, at the request of one of them, be
submitted to arbitration. If the dispute cannot be solved, any one of those parties may refer the
dispute to the International Court of Justice by request in conformity with the Statute of the Court”,
remains, the reservations concerning the substantive articles of the Convention has been
withdrawn.
In addition, in 2004 a new sentence to Article 90 of the Constitution was added which ensures that
“in the case of contradiction between the provisions of the duly ratified international agreements
on fundamental rights and freedoms and the provisions of domestic laws, the judgments of the
former shall prevail”. Thus, in the case of any contradiction between the international agreements
on fundamental rights and freedoms including CEDAW and the domestic laws the judgments of
international conventions will be taken as a base. Turkey signed the Optional Protocol of CEDAW on
30 July 2002. The Protocol was put into effect on 29 January 2003. Moreover, Turkey adopted the
documents (Beijing Declaration and Action Plan) agreed to right after the Fourth World Conference
on Women without any reservations. As it is fairly easy understood from abovementioned
information, in our country in activities being hold concerning gender equality international
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