This is a blog is related to my academic work in the International Academic Forum on SOGIESC Law but meant to serve anyone who wants to contribute to improve the protection of human rights worldwide. It is intended to keep interested readers informed about legal developments relating to sexual orientation, gender expression and identity and sex characteristics (SOGIESC). Hopefully, it will make it easier to find correct legal information about the developments in all regions of the world and, in particular, with regard to international law.
USA: Religious university blocks every single student club just to get rid of LGBTQ+ group
(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
The private Orthodox Jewish Yeshiva University has blocked every single student organisation, just to get rid of an LGBTQ+ club.
In June, the New York County Supreme Court found that Yeshiva University was in violation of the city’s human rights laws by refusing to recognise the YU Pride Alliance, with the court ordering the university to grant the club “advantages, facilities, and privileges afforded to all other student groups”.
How LGBTQ+ rights in UK changed during the Queen’s time on the throne
Throughout her reign, life has been radically transformed for LGBTQ+ people in the UK. When she ascended to the throne in 1952 following the death of her father King George VI, homosexuality was still illegal.
While Queen Elizabeth generally avoided commenting publicly on LGBTQ+ rights, she has – as is required by her position – given royal assent (which is a formality where the reigning monarch approves changes to the law) to many pieces of legislation that have changed the trajectory of queer life in Britain.
The complicated legacy of the Wolfenden Report, which changed the trajectory of UK LGBTQ+ rights
Sir John Wolfenden (right) meets members of the press at the Waldorf Hotel for discussions and questions on the Wolfenden Committee Report on Sport, 28th September 1960. (Photo by Terry Fincher/Mirrorpix/Getty Images)
The soccer governing body, FIFA, knew this in 2010, when it awarded Qatar the football tournament, one of the world’s most widely viewed sporting events. FIFA’s own governing statutes, in force at the time, ban LGBT discrimination of the kind Qatar enshrines in its national laws, and FIFA’s due diligence to enforce its own policies around the world has been ineffective.
In 2016, FIFA adopted the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which require it to “avoid infringing on the human rights of others and address adverse human rights impacts.” It requires FIFA to take adequate measures for the “prevention, mitigation, and remediation” of human rights impacts.
To meet this responsibility for the Qatar World Cup, FIFA should have introduced concrete policies and a human rights due diligence process with regular reporting. But less than five months ahead of the football tournament, and despite FIFA’s recent celebration of Pride month, it is clear that it is failing to live up to its promises.
In March, an international coalition of groups noted FIFA’s and Qatar’s lack of progress in implementing civil society recommendations on LGBT rights made to the country’s Supreme Committee, including legal reform and free expression guarantees.
But despite Qatar’s dismal human rights record, including around the rights of migrant workers, severe restrictions on free expression and peaceful assembly, state policies that discriminate and facilitate violence against women, and a repressive environment against LGBT residents and visitors, Qatar remains the tournament host and has not changed its ways.
In 2020, Qatar assured prospective visitors that the kingdom will welcome LGBT visitors and that fans will be free to fly the rainbow flag at the games. But it begged the question: what about the rights of LGBT residents of Qatar?
Suggestions that Qatar should make an exception for outsiders are implicit reminders that Qatari authorities do not believe that its LGBT residents deserve basic rights. It risks erasing the lived repressive reality of LGBT residents of Qatar.
On May 20, at a news conference in Berlin, the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, responded to a question about the rights of LGBT visitors by repeating that, “We [Qatar] welcome everybody, but we also expect and want people to respect our culture.”
Qatar’s steady reference to “culture” to deny LGBT people’s rights deflects responsibility away from abusive state systems. “Culture” should not be used as a cover for discourse, practices, and legislation that have effectively excluded content related to sexual orientation and gender identity from the public sphere.
Qatari authorities censor mainstream media related to sexual orientation and gender identity. And people who have experienced government repression have told us that the government surveils and arrests LGBT people based on their online activity.
In April, Major General Abdulaziz Abdullah Al Ansari, a senior Interior Ministry official overseeing security for the football tournament, said that rainbow flags may be confiscated from prospective visitors “for their protection.” Al Ansari added: “Reserve the room together, sleep together — this is something that’s not in our concern.”
It certainly should be a concern. A recent survey by a Scandinavian media group showed that 3 of the 69 hotels on FIFA’s official list of recommended accommodations would deny entry to same-sex couples. It found that only 33 did not object to booking same-sex couples, while 20 others said that “they would accommodate same-sex couples as long as they did not publicly show that they were gay.” FIFA responded, warning that it will terminate any contracts with hotels that discriminated against same-sex couples.
Qatar’s hardening position may be connected to its improving geopolitical standing in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, especially in Europe where Qatar’s liquefied natural gas is viewed as an alternative to Russian energy.
Journalists, human rights organizations, and football associations have widely criticized allowing Qatar to host the World Cup in the first place. FIFA has a responsibility to hold host authorities accountable to an international rights-respecting standard, including on LGBT rights.
Long-term legal reform should prioritize the realities of LGBT residents of Qatar, including by introducing legislation that protects against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, online and offline. The Qatari government should repeal all laws that criminalize consensual sexual relations outside of marriage—before the World Cup begins this fall.
Germany: Federal government wants to better protect queer asylum seekers in the future
Die Bundesregierung will Menschen besser schützen, die wegen ihrer sexuellen oder geschlechtlichen Identität nach Deutschland gekommen sind. Ab kommendem Monat solle das Flüchtlingsbundesamt (Bamf) bei der Bearbeitung von Asylanträgen queerer Menschen nicht mehr die so genannte “Verhaltensprognose” berücksichtigen, deren Ergebnis sich bislang negativ auf die Asylentscheidung auswirken konnte – dies berichteten die Zeitungen der Funke Mediengruppe (Mittwochsausgaben). Eine entsprechende Dienstanweisung werde derzeit im Bamf umgesetzt.
The European Union on Tuesday condemned the death sentences imposed by Iran on two women, Elham Chubdar and Zahra Sedighi Hamedani, who advocates and human rights groups say are LGBT activists and innocent of any crimeThe European Union on Tuesday condemned the death sentences imposed by Iran on two women, Elham Chubdar and Zahra Sedighi Hamedani, who advocates and human rights groups say are LGBT activists and innocent of any crime
St Kitts and Nevis becomes the latest country to declare that laws that have criminalized LGBT people are unconstitutional
GENEVA, 30 August 2022—UNAIDS welcomes a St. Kitts and Nevis High Court ruling that laws criminalizing gay sex are unconstitutional, meaning that they are immediately struck from the legal code. The Court upheld the plaintiffs’ claim that Sections 56 and 57 of the Offences Against the Person Act violated the right to privacy and freedom of expression.
“This landmark ruling is an important step forward in ensuring equality and dignity for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in St. Kitts and Nevis and the whole Caribbean,” said Luisa Cabal, UNAIDS Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean. “Today, St. Kitts and Nevis joins a growing list of Caribbean nations that have overturned these colonial-era laws that deny people’s human rights and hold back the response to the HIV pandemic. Everyone benefits from decriminalisation.”
Laws that punish consensual same sex relations, in addition to contravening the human rights of LGBT people, are a significant obstacle to improving health outcomes, including in the HIV response. Such laws help to sustain stigma and discrimination against LGBT people and are barriers to LGBT people seeking and receiving healthcare for fear of being punished or detained. Decriminalisation saves and changes lives.
The claim against the government of St. Kitts and Nevis was brought by a citizen, Jamal Jeffers, and the St. Kitts and Nevis Alliance for Equality, with the support of the Eastern Caribbean Alliance for Diversity and Equality. The ruling by the High Court follows a similar High Court decision for Antigua and Barbuda in July. Courts in Belize and Trinidad and Tobago have also repealed sections of their legal codes that criminalized same-sex sexual relations.
There remain seven countries in the Caribbean that criminalize gay sex between consenting adults, all of them former British colonies. They are Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
“Caribbean civil society is determined, and Caribbean courts are clear. The clock is ticking on these damaging colonial laws,” said Luisa Cabal. “Countries that have still not taken these laws off the books need to do so as a matter of urgency, for the health and human rights of all their people.”
The Court ruling reduces to 68 the number of countries worldwide criminalizing same-sex sexual relations. Earlier this month, Singapore announced that it is repealing legislation that punished gay sex by a prison sentence of up to two years.
CEDAW: Rosanna Flamer-Caldera v Sri Lanka, a case concerning discrimination against lesbians
Earlier this year, #CEDAW adopted ground-breaking views in Rosanna Flamer-Caldera v Sri Lanka, a case concerning discrimination against lesbians. It has been the first international #HumanRights case to address the criminalisation of lesbian women’s sexuality.
Not only the Committee called for the decriminalisation of consensual sexual conduct between women, but it also urged the adoption of comprehensive measures to protect lesbian, bisexual, trans and intersex women. Read more: https://lnkd.in/dtkAFpbh
USA: Strip Search by Trans Guard Violated Inmate’s Religious Beliefs: Court
A strip search of a Muslim prisoner involving a transgender male guard violated his religious beliefs, a federal appeals court has ruled.
The trans guard supervised a strip search of Rufus West, an inmate at the Green Bay Correctional Institution in Allouez, Wis., in 2016. The searches involve one guard actually performing it while another observes. West is subject to the searches “when he leaves and reenters the prison, during lockdowns, before and after visits from outsiders and certain other movements within the facility, and whenever directed by a prison supervisor,” notes the ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
International and Comparative SOGIESC Law - Professor Andreas R Ziegler 