LGBT Discrimination - Background

Discrimination is an assault on the very notion of human rights. Discrimination is the systematic denial of certain peoples' or groups' full human rights because of who they are or what they believe. It is all too easy to deny a person’s human rights if you consider them as “less than human”.

This is why international human rights law is grounded in the principle of non-discrimination. International law guarantees human rights to all without distinctions based on race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

Expert bodies of the United Nations have affirmed that this principle includes discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Everyone has a sexual orientation and a gender identity. When someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity does not conform to the majority, they are often seen as a legitimate target for discrimination or abuse.

All people should be able to enjoy all the human rights described in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yet millions of people across the globe face execution, imprisonment, torture, violence and discrimination because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The range of abuses is limitless.

Human rights abuses based on sexual orientation or gender identity include the violation of the rights of the child; the infliction of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment; arbitrary detention on grounds of identity or beliefs; the restriction of freedom of association and basic rights of due process.

These are violations which have for decades formed the core of the agenda of international human rights law and the United Nations’ (UN) human rights machinery. In its 1994 decision in Toonen v. Australia, the UN Human Rights Committee, which is responsible for the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), declared that sexual orientation was a protected staus and laws that discriminated based on these ground are in violation of human rights law. A 1998 UN Declaration supporting the decriminalization of homosexuality worldwide was supported by 66 states but opposed by the Holy Sea and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference