Global Arc of Justice, DAY 2

Joel Simpson

The lunch plenary was on "Human Rights and Global Health: LGBT Equality and the Fight Against HIV". Among other excellent presentations, we heard one on African MSM and HIV with clear conclusions that rights violations (denial of housing, access to health care, etc) were elevating HIV risk for same-sex practicing men in Africa: this was not a new thesis but more empirical evidence to support it. One presenter said in unequivocal terms that although HIV is NOT a gay disease, that men who have sex with men are at the MOST risk for HIV and that the denial of gay activists to accept this does not help to reduce HIV in gay communities.

We also learned about a ground-breaking project from South Africa called the "Snoke Gender Justice Network" which works directly with straight-identified men to prevent gender-based violence which they emphatically define as violence against women and homophobic violence. According to Dean Peacock, co-founder and co-director, the project is showing measurable impact even in a short-term period and it sounds like a good practice to look at for the men's forum work that SASOD has been involved in with GRPA and UNFPA in Guyana.

Next was the concurrent sessions and I went to the global-track one on "Global Perspectives on Transgender Rights." As may be expected, most of the panel was Latin American. Professor Mauro Cabral from Argentina, who identifies as an inter-sex man, presented on "Is There Someone There? The Notion of "Gender Identity" in Latin American Law from a Deconstructionist Perspective." He teaches phliosophy of law and law and ethics in Argentina so it was a very jurisprudencial presentation. Marcelo Romero, who is the Regional Coordinator of the Latin American and Caribbean Network of Transgender People, gave insights to the situation on the ground for transgender people in the region.

Professor Tamara Hernandez from Venezuela presented on the litigation she has been personally doing for more than the last five years challenging the courts in her country to recognise her legal identity as a transgender person. She made an eyebrow-raising point that as long as the right to a legal identity is denied, all other rights for transgender persons would continue to be affected e.g. right to work, right to housing, freedom of movement, etc. In practical terms, she gave a hypothetical example of a transgender person being hired for a job but when it is time to hand in official documents, it causes problems and raises transphobia when name, sex, gender and other ID markers do not correspond throughout these documents. She felt that although she was not personally affected (as she is an eminently qualified and well recognised doctor of law in her country), it was important to win recognition of these rights for Venezuelan transgender people and so she has been both the litigant and sole attorney in her own case for the last 5 years, filing submissions every 2 months to a response of sheer silence from the local judiciary.

The next session was the Working Group Report Out on the Implementation of the Yogyakarta Principles. Julie Dorf, founder and first director of IGLHRC and now Senior Advisor for The Council for Global Equality, who facilitted the working group chaired the panel made up of Boris Dittrich from HRW, Prof, Mauro Cabrol from Argentina, Kim Vance from ARC International and I. I presented the Guyana case study in the soon-to-be-published 'Activist Guide to the Yogyakarta Principles' with mention of the recent Kaieteur News editorial authoritatively citing the Principles, and highlighted a few recommendations from the small group on 'Country-Level Activism.'

The first question put to the panel was in relation to the UN joint statement, with the questioner saying that sign-ons from 66 countries was good but with an organisation like the UN of almost 200 countries (189 I think?), its bad and asked whether 66 is good enough and whether we should be satisfied with 66. Boris and then Kim responded by pointing out that the counter-statement (presented by Syria but the Holy See was really the driving focre behind it) was only able to garner 56 sign-ons and that the language in the statement was stronger than previous initiatives like the Norwegian statement at the Human Rights Council and the failed Brazilian resolution. They concluded that it was still a success since this would be the first time that the subject was officially mentioned at the level of the General Assembly in the entire history of the United Nations, and that it was monumental that 6 African countries broke rank and signed on. Interestingly, reference to the Yogyakarta Principles was dropped from the original draft because the European Union (and not Global South countries) made an issue of it.

The day closed with a plenary on "International LGBT Human Rights: The Yogyakarta Principles" moderated by Prof. Douglas Sanders with panelists Prof. Mauro Cabral from Argentina, Sonia Correra from Sexuality Policy Watch in Brazil, Alice Miller from Berkley Law School, Hari Phuyal from the International Commission of Jurists in Nepal and Hiroyuki Taniguchi, from Waseda University in Japan. Sonia opened with a really interesting presentation which summarised the trajectory at the global level that lead to the Yogyakarta Principles. She spoked about the Organisation of the Islamic Conference and the Holy See (nicknamed the "Unholy Alliance") forming a bloc at UN meetings to reject any progressive moves on sexuality, especially in the 1990s and how conferences in Cairo and Beijing were turning points because of the presence of activist voices. Alice gave a really insightful presentation questioning whether documents like the Yogyakarta Principles were the best approach to guaranteeing LGBT rights, or whether other approaches, like the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) Declaration on Sexual Rights have more value with linkages to poverty and development and a recognition that service provision needs to be respectful of rights. She concluded that "real" coalitions on sexual rights were a better approached and left us with questions to consider: What do these coalitions look like? And what else needs to change?

Hari spoke about the famous December 2007 case in which he was the attorney and how the judgement has generated important spin-offs for LGBT rights in Nepal e.g. Nepal now has the first elected openly LGBTI official in Asia; 3 political parties now have LGBT rights in their manifestoes; the national budget has specific allocation for transgender persons, etc. And after a riveting discussion, we closed for the day!


Latoya Lazarus

On Thursday I attended four discussions, three of which were on the Yogyakarta Principles. The other was a Lunch Plenary on Human Rights and Global Health: LGBT Equality and the Fight against HIV/AIDS. I must say that while I heard everything, or most, of what was being said, some of the information was hard to process as this was my second encounter with the principles. Also, being an observer and not a participant, I was not privileged to pose questions that may have enhanced my understanding of the principles during the two working group sessions. However, I will present one question, that I found to be useful in thinking about the principles. The question is: How do we fit Yogyakarta in national legal frameworks? This was a question that seemed to underline most of the discussions around the application and usefulness of the principles. While some were critical and openly expressed that they did not know, but wanted to know, how the use these principles effectively, others seemed to have more hopeful examples of the usage of the Principle. Last blog, I talked about Joel Simpson's recount of how the principle was used in Guyana, which he shared again today in the last discussion on the principles. An older gentleman, who is from the Netherlands but now works with Human Rights Watch in New York, informed us that in the Netherlands the principles are followed and in fact, their government suggested to Canada that they too use the principles as a guide in their own country.

Just a little background on the principles, if you are wondering what exactly are the Yogyakarta Principles. These principles, which resemble an international human rights framework were launched in March 2007. They do not create new laws, but rather reify those human rights laws that countries already signed off to. According to Sonia Correa, who was one of the persons present at the creation of the document, these priciples are there to remind states of what they had committed to in regards to human rights. Moreover, she wants to stress the open nature of the principles, that is, they are open to further discussion, not fixed. Accordng to Boris, the man from the Netherlands, the Yogyakarta Principles are a living document, in that they are not frozen in the time in which they were created, rather, new rights may be included with time.

Although these principles were not introducing new Human Rights laws into countries, there are originally opposition to the priciples mainly from three blocks: 1) Caricom block, because they believed it would affirm or rather result in the acknowledgement of same-sex identity, 2) The delegation of Paraguay, because they thought it meant that smae-sex marriage would follow automatically, and the United States and surprisingly Canada, because they stated that these principles were not Human Rights and therefore did not belong in political resolutions. The question, that many wanted answered, which was not, in may opinion, answered was "How do we fit Yogyakarta Principles in national legal frameworks?"

The Global Arc of Justice Conference, DAY 1

Joel Simpson and Latoya Lazarus are blogging from the Global Arc of Justice Conference, taking place March 11-15 in West Hollywood:

Joel Simpson

Before the opening plenary tonight, 35 by-invitation-only conference attendees and some guests spend the day in a working group on the Yogyakarta Principles. For those of us who have not been involved in the global process, it was really useful to hear about the background work that culminated in the writing and launch of the Yogyakarta Principles.

Sonia Correa from Brazil gave us the modern history crash course to the Principles in a short presentation. For her, the trajectory at the global level started at UN conferences during the 1990s in particular, which she described as "psycho-social" in nature. She also mentioned that the issues arose in a context of population and development, which she identified as important intersectionalities that the global movement may be leaving behind as we the advance the implementation of the Principles. She also shared that the Yogyakarta Principles were not the first set of guiding principles to achieve traction in the international human rights framework. The Paris Principles for establishing national human rights commissions and the UN guidelines on HIV and human rights were cited as similar examples of "principles" that have gained traction in the international circuits.

Professor Tamara Hernandez from Venezuela spoke about how very different the"LGB" issues are from the "TI" issues referencing her own experiences as a transexual lesbian for illustration, but stressed the need for us to work together. A Chilian TI activist and academic spoke about what she called "inverting the hiearchies" in LGBTI communities in terms of giving the gender indentity more prominence than the sexual orientation issues. She spoke about the limitations of TI communities, given their smallness in numbers, to be able to mobilise in like manner to LGB communities. It made me think about how a simple thing talking about how SASOD works on gender identity and sexual orientation issues (instead of vice versa) can enhance visibility of trans sub-communities issues, especially in a context where the more physical visibility of transgender identities (over homo/bi -sexual identities) exposes TI persons to the brunt of the discrimination faced by gender and sexual minorities as a stigmatised group.

Still within the human rights framework, we analised the tensions in sexuality and gender issues between civil and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights as the former seem to be ascribed more prominence than the latter, especially by state actors.

German Perfetti, a human rights lawyer from Colombia, bashed us all for what he called the heteronormalisation of the global LGBTI movement, which he describes as our constant attempt to fit ourselves and our lives into the logic of heterosexuals. He chastised the quest for 'same-sex couples rights' and lamented the response of LGBTI leaders that it was not "politically correct" for us to speak about more-than-two-partners relationships and chided the global movement for its growing reluctance to 'take risks,' as he puts it, in our recently more conservative strategies.

At some point, many of us shared stories about using the Yogyakarta Principles at the local level. I spoke about our media/public advocacy launch of the Principles in response to the NAPS/GTU debate finals moot on whether homosexuals should allowed to be teachers and the recent Kaieteur News editorial which cited the Principles in reference to the cross-dressing debate in an instance where they were not mentioned in our press statement. This was heralded as a major success at national level. Later on, at the dessert reception, I learned from Scott Long at Human Rights Watch that SASOD was the very first local NGO to promote the Principles just about 3 days after the official launch in Geneva with our letter in the local press in response to the NAPS/GTU debate finals moot. Our press launch of the Principles will be highlighted in the soon-to-be-published Activist Guide to the Yogyakarta Principles which we in the working group should see a draft of soon. Julie Ford, chair of the working group, asked me to share that story again in the report out on the working group's deliberations to the wider 250-attendees conference.

We spent the after-lunch session in small groups coming up with recommendations around various aspects on the work of the Principles. Akim and I were in the "Country-Level Activism" small group where alot of the discussion focused on capacity-building/ training of activists to use the Principles. It seems as if IGLHRC would be the ideal partner to work with on rolling out a regional-level training on the Principles in the Caribbean. Activist training would need to trickle down to the local levels too.

The opening plenary took the special focus of the conference on Latin America. Presenters were Karen Atala Riffo, the lesbian Chilian judge who is fighting for adoption rights to her children in court; Tatiana Cordero, Ecuadorian human rights lawyer who is the Executive Director of a local, feminist NGO for lesbian and trans-women rights; Geman Perfetti, Colombian human rights lawyer who recently won a case at the Human Rights Committee on same-sex couples' rights to pension; and Jorge Saavdera, openly gay and HIV positive former director of the national AIDS programme in Mexico who is now the Cheif of Global Affairs at AIDS Healthcare Foundation in the Netherlands. Dr. Saavdera was presented with a suprise award by the UCLA AIDS Institue and the LA latino community AIDS organisation for his ground-breaking anti-homophobia campaigns and hiring of trans persons as Ministry of Health staff in Mexico. Apparently, the latino AIDS association here was able to adopt and run the Mexican radio infomercials as is in LA.

Latoya Lazarus

There were two workshops today, I went to one on Yogyakarta Principles. This was an interesting workshop with people from various academic, political and activist backgrounds. Key speakers included: Sonia Correa from Brazil, Mauro Corbral from Argentina, Kim Vance from Canada (Nova Scotia) and it was facilitated by Julie Dorf.

The participants raised some important issues that must be considered in regards to these principles that came into being into 2006. Specifically, there were several persons expressing their concerns about the limits for understanding and conceptualizing the concerns of certain groups, particular Trans. and Intersexed people. I must say, not having read these principles, the workshop turned out to be very informative, especially as the speakers provided a background of the Yogyakarta Principles, its purposes and the challenges. Moreover, the personal experiences and stories of how these principles are being used (whether they were effective or not) in various parts of the world was very informative. Guyana's Joel Simpson spoke about how principle 12, the right to work, was used in Guyana to first introduced the country to the principle during a time when the government and teacher's union were having a debate on whether non-heterosexual persons should be allowed to be teachers.

The workshop came to a close, for today, with a brainstorm for areas for further consideration. People were divided into small groups and I joined one about the role of academic research. They suggested some important areas for further in-depth research, areas that are largely unexplored in academia. Three such areas that I found particularly interesting was: 1) investigating how the language of the principles are being used by the "right" or those in opposition of gay rights. 2)investigating its uses and relevance in various countries, that is, strategies used, cultural variation , specific problems of application etc. and, 3) Exploring in-depth particular case studies, looking at whether these principles refer to individual or group rights?