The European Women Lawyers Association (EWLA) is registered in Belgium as an international non-governmental, non-profit, association (Association Internationale Sans But Lucratif). It is a federation of national women lawyers associations from amongst the European Union countries and those of EFTA countries. Members of EWLA are also individual women lawyers and academics from these countries. EWLA pursues the co-operation of European women lawyers, in order to combine their specific expertise in monitoring law and politics seen from the angle of fundamental rights, and in particular gender equality.
The aims of EWLA are:
- to improve the understanding of European legislation in relation to equality, with particular reference to women, and its effects;
- to bring together women lawyers across the European Union, e.g. by the closest possible contacts with bars, law societies, associations of women lawyers, faculties and schools of legal education and research, both on a national and international level and with European or other public authorities;
- to undertake studies, research and conferences of European women lawyers also with organisations and institutions inside and outside of Europe with view to achieving equality of rights and opportunities;
- to strengthen links between EU women lawyers and to encourage meetings, cooperation and unterstanding between women lawyers.
- Women’s interests in the institutions of the European Union in all women’s issues in general and in the legal field in particular are represented and defended without prejudice to the scientific and pedagogical principal character of EWLA.