Sexual Rights: Perspectives from International and Comparative Law (A. Mill*r)

This seminar explores the legal aspects of sexual rights claims in contemporary international, regional and selected national fora. The term ‘sexual rights’ has been increasingly used in national and international settings to encompass an expanding universe of claims relating to sexuality; these include freedom and equality of sexual orientations and behaviors, freedom from sexual violence, conditions for sexual health, rights to sexual expression and association, rights to marry and form families, as well as rights to sexual relationships without marriage, and freedom to determine the relation between sexuality and reproduction. These claims are grounded in legal guarantees which are found in many different legal instruments, such as those relating to privacy, health, non-discrimination, information, expression, association, and freedom from torture and arbitrary detention. Judicial, activist and scholarly arguments for sexual rights (particularly those outside the US) often borrow heavily across borders, invoking international, regional and comparative standards. The status of sexual rights claims varies widely in national and regional courts, however, and doctrinal approaches are often inconsistent or inapplicable across claimants. Complications in building national and trans-national coherence stem from cross and intra-cultural differences of gender, racial and age-based social organization and norms, as well as the diversity national legal doctrines and advocates’ interests.

Seminar materials include national case law, regional cases and communications from the EU, ECHR/Council of Europe, IACHR/Organization of American States and the ACHPR/African Union as well as decisions, advisory statements and reports under the UN human rights treaty system. Case materials will be complemented by scholarly articles, primary materials from advocates working in many different cultural, legal and political settings, and reports from inter-governmental debates at regional and international levels. Key questions guiding the seminar include: How does sexual rights advocacy fit with other justice claims in debates about globalization and justice? What role does sexual rights claiming and attendant legal challenges play in national and global politics? What are the tensions between the push for transnational rights advocacy and local specificity? What impact does the turn to law have on these debates?