Bracketing sexuality: Human rights and sexual orientation – a decade of development and denial at the United Nations

doi:10.4324/9780203966105-43

Chapter

Bracketing sexuality: Human rights and sexual orientation – a decade of development and denial at the United Nations

ABSTRACT

This year marks the 10th anniversary of an important milestone in the history of the recognition of rights relating to sexual orientation within the United Nations human rights system. In March 1994, a ground-breaking decision by the Human Rights Committee (HRC) in the case of Toonen v. Australia found that Tasmanian laws criminalizing all sexual relations between men were in breach of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), whose non-discrimination provisions were interpreted as including ‘sexual orientation’ (Human Rights Committee, 1994, para 8.7).