President's message September 2009

President EWLA 
I would like to begin my tenure as President of the European Women Lawyers' Assocation by offering my sincere appreciation and gratitude. I am deeply honored to serve as the third President of EWLA, which celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2010.

EWLA is concerned with the co-operation of women lawyers from all member states of the European Union and the European Economic Area. Its intermediate aim is to bundle up their specific expertise in monitoring law and politics seen from a gendered perspective. The long-term aim is to build momentum for a women lawyers' association which acts on the European level as a pressure-group to enhance equality by means of law. Examples of possible actions include: giving expert opinions to and lobbying political institutions, proposing and even outlining drafts for European directives, bringing test cases to the European Court of Justice, informing and empowering women to claim their rights, campaigning as well as many other things.


I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you to the launch of EWLA’s new website; it will be a platform to pursue our objectives. All EWLA members have access to the discussion forum. We are in the process of creating a Women Lawyers' Directory for the whole of Europe. For this reason we invite all lawyers to register their contact information through our homepage. There is a special banner for non-members who have not joined EWLA to register their contact information, which will appear in the Directory, sorted by countries, enabling you to have direct access to information on associations, individual members of EWLA who approve of having their contact information public when registering and hence have direct access to lawyers in various European countries. We have been building bridges with women lawyers in the United States and will continue to strengthen the ties with them and women lawyers associations in other continents as well. 

It is my hope that EWLA’s homepage will by a dynamic forum for communication and the realization of our objectives: a tool of empowerment for women lawyers in Europe – benefitting and improving the situation of women in general.


On this website we will feature EWLA' s recommendations, resolutions and statements. There will be news of members activities and stories of interest to women lawyers. In one place you will find a list of upcoming events in all Europe (even elsewhere) and highlights; current information and issues; news from the European Union, Council of Europe and United Nations and various other sources.

This new forum of EWLA will help create a real community for women lawyers, law students, judges and academics. This will be our day-to-day space for communication and a powerful medium for sharing, education, enlightenment, collaboration and empowerment. 

It is a great honour to have the Acting Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Maud de Boer-Buquicchio who is an honorary member of EWLA representing the first viewpoint on our new website. She counts on EWLA to show the way.  

This will be our challenge!


- Herdís Thorgeirsdóttir
 

 president@ewla.org

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