"Human rights in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity are at last reaching the heart of global debates. Yet 78 states worldwide continue to criminalise same-sex sexual behaviour, and due to the legal legacies of the British Empire, 42 of these - more than half - are in the Commonwealth of Nations. In recent years many states have seen the emergence of new sexual nationalisms, leading to increased enforcement of colonial sodomy laws against men, new criminalisations of sex between women and discrimination against transgender people. [This book] challenges these developments as the first book to focus on experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) and all non-heterosexual people in the Commonwealth. The volume offers the most internationally extensive analysis to date of the global struggle for decriminalisation of same-sex sexual behaviour and relationships."--Abstract, website.

The best country-by-country assessment of human rights. The human rights records of more than ninety countries and territories are put into perspective in Human Rights Watch's signature yearly report. Reflecting extensive investigative work undertaken by Human Rights Watch staff, in close partnership with domestic human rights activists, the annual World Report is an invaluable resource for journalists, diplomats, and citizens, and is a must-read for anyone interested in the fight to protect human rights in every corner of the globe.

Envisioning Global LGBT Human Rights: (Neo)colonialism, Neoliberalism, Resistance and Hope is an outcome of a five-year international collaboration among partners that share a common legacy of British colonial laws that criminalise same-sex intimacy and gender identity/expression. The project sought to facilitate learning from each other and to create outcomes that would advance knowledge and social justice. The project was unique, combining research and writing with participatory documentary filmmaking. This visionary politics infuses the pages of the anthology. The chapters are bursting with invaluable first hand insights from leading activists at the forefront of some of the most fiercely fought battlegrounds of contemporary sexual politics in India, the Caribbean and Africa. As well, authors from Canada, Botswana and Kenya examine key turning points in the advancement of SOGI issues at the United Nations, and provide critical insights on LGBT asylum in Canada. Authors also speak to a need to reorient and decolonise queer studies, and turn a critical gaze northwards from the Global South. It is a book for activists and academics in a range of disciplines from postcolonial and sexualities studies to filmmaking, as well as for policy-makers and practitioners committed to envisioning, and working for, a better future.

This report demonstrates the relationship between sexual health, human rights and the law. Drawing from a review of public health evidence and extensive research into human rights law at international, regional and national levels, the report shows how states in different parts of the world can and do support sexual health through legal and other mechanisms that are consistent with human rights standards and their own human rights obligations.

This encyclopedia reviews and interprets a broad array of social science and humanities research on LGBT people, politics, and public policy around the world. The articles are organized around six major themes of the study of identity politics, with a focus on movement politics, public attitudes, political institutions, elections, and the broader context of political theory. Through peer-reviewed contributions by leading researchers, the encyclopedia offers the most comprehensive view of research on LGBT politics and policy to date.

Debate about the rights of sexual minorities, whether individuals or members of same-sex couples, has become an important issue for legislatures and courts in many constitutional democracies. This volume collects together some of the more significant writings in the debate, and reflects a variety of perspectives: liberal, conservative, and radical. The topics covered include the meaning and importance of sexual freedom, gender roles, marriage and other significant partnerships, child care and adoption, the criminal law, employment, and expression and pornography. The volume also seeks to relate arguments about sexual orientation and rights to broader debates within feminist theory.

This book brings together a diverse range of critical interventions in sexuality and gender studies, and seeks to encourage new ways of thinking about the connections and tensions between sexual politics, citizenship and belonging. The book is organized around three interlinked thematic areas, focusing on sexual citizenship, nationalism and international borders (Part 1); sexuality and "race" (Part 2); and sexuality and religion (Part 3). In revisiting notions of sexual citizenship and belonging, contributors engage with topical debates about "sexual nationalism," or the construction of western/European nations as exceptional in terms of attitudes to sexual and gender equality vis-à-vis an uncivilized, racialized "Other." The collection explores macro-level perspectives by attending to the geopolitical and socio-legal structures within which competing claims to citizenship and belonging are played out; at the same time, micro-level perspectives are utilized to explore the interplay between sexuality and "race," nation, ethnicity and religious identities. Geographically, the collection has a prevalently European focus, yet contributions explore a range of trans-national spatial dimensions that exceed the boundaries of "Europe" and of European nation-states.

"More than 80 countries around the world still make consensual homosexual sex between adults a crime. More than half have these laws because they used to be British colonies. This report describes the strange afterlife of a colonial legacy. In 1860, British colonizers introduced a new criminal code to occupied India. Section 377 of the code prohibited 'carnal intercourse against the order of nature.' Versions of this Victorian law spread across the British empire. They were imposed to control the colonies, put in place because imperial masters believed that 'native' morals needed 'reform.' They are still in force from Botswana to Bangladesh, from Nigeria to Papua New Guinea, even though the United Nations and international law condemns them. These laws invade privacy and create inequality. They condemn people to outlaw status because of how they look or whom they love. They are used to discredit enemies and destroy careers. They can incite violence and excuse murder. They hand police and others the power to arrest, blackmail and abuse. Today, as a court case in India tries to elimate the original Section 377's repressive force, this report documents their dangerous effects. These holdouts of the British Empire have outlived their time"--Page 4 of cover.

At the 1995 Zimbabwe International Bookfair the organisation of Gays and Lesbians in Zimbabwe was prevented from taking part. This opened up an unprecedented debate in southern Africa, which is conveyed in this report, together with a survey of African views on homosexuality, a global overview on homosexuality and the law, and an address list of human rights organizations and organi-zations working for gay and lesbian rights. A first-hand report and analysis of the new book fair drama in Harare 1996 is included in the new edition.

A stunning and provocative new novel by the internationally celebrated author of The Blind Assassin, winner of the Booker Prize. Margaret Atwood’s new novel is so utterly compelling, so prescient, so relevant, so terrifyingly-all-too-likely-to-be-true, that readers may find their view of the world forever changed after reading it. This is Margaret Atwood at the absolute peak of her powers. For readers of Oryx and Crake, nothing will ever look the same again. The narrator of Atwood's riveting novel calls himself Snowman. When the story opens, he is sleeping in a tree, wearing an old bedsheet, mourning the loss of his beloved Oryx and his best friend Crake, and slowly starving to death. He searches for supplies in a wasteland where insects proliferate and pigoons and wolvogs ravage the pleeblands, where ordinary people once lived, and the Compounds that sheltered the extraordinary. As he tries to piece together what has taken place, the narrative shifts to decades earlier. How did everything fall apart so quickly? Why is he left with nothing but his haunting memories? Alone except for the green-eyed Children of Crake, who think of him as a kind of monster, he explores the answers to these questions in the double journey he takes - into his own past, and back to Crake's high-tech bubble-dome, where the Paradice Project unfolded and the world came to grief. With breathtaking command of her shocking material, and with her customary sharp wit and dark humour, Atwood projects us into an outlandish yet wholly believable realm populated by characters who will continue to inhabit our dreams long after the last chapter.