The Council for Global Equality Submits Report to the UN's Universal Periodic Review
At the end of April, the Council for Global Equality and its 19 organizational members submitted a report to the United Nations on the human rights record of the United States, focusing on a variety of LGBT issues here at home. This submission is a rare example of international and domestic advocacy coming together to invigorate one another. The report was submitted for "Universal Periodic Review" (UPR), a relatively new mechanism of the UN's Human Rights Council by which every nation has its own human rights record reviewed by other states in a peer review process. This process is one of the key "naming and shaming" tools that the UN uses to address human rights issues around the world, and it is a mechanism that LGBT groups have increasingly relied on to draw international attention to our struggles for equality.
As a part of the Universal Periodic Review process, the State Department and other federal officials have traveled the country convening "listening sessions" to help shape the U.S. report to the United Nations. In April, they heard from groups in San Francisco, including a panel of individuals convened by the Council for Global Equality who testified to the impact of abuses committed on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity here in the United States. Those powerful and heartbreaking personal stories can be heard here (UPR LGBT Panel ), and they remind us that these are not esoteric issues of international treaty law - these are real issues that impact real people every day in our country and in so many other countries around the world. |
||
|
More Articles...
- Public Protests Worldwide on Uganda Anti-Gay Measure
- The Council for Global Equality Welcomes Important Legislative Victory
- Inaugural Global Equality Leadership Award Honors Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin (D‐WI)
- The Council for Global Equality joins human rights leaders in condemning Ugandan "Anti-Homosexuality" bill