ISHR and ILGA World have updated their factsheets on different UN experts – check out the references to LGBTI persons and recommendations that these Special Procedures have made.

ISHR and ILGA World have examined the work of 40 UN Special Procedures over the last nine years to compile factsheets listing the references and recommendations made by these experts regarding LGBTI persons, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics (SOGIESC).

Focusing on the Special Procedures that made the most regular and in-depth references to issues affecting LGBTI persons, the factsheets examine all thematic reports, reports arising from country visits, and communications sent to different States between January 2011 and 20 November 2020. Find out more about the trends over the past year here.

During this period, in relation to LGBTI topics, thematic Special Procedures sent 19 new communications, issued 28 reports on country visits and published 39 thematic reports.

The mandates that made the most regular references to SOGIESC issues were the Independent Expert on SOGI and the Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders. In welcome advances some mandates made their first communications covering LGBTI topics (disappearance, minority issues, older persons and mercenaries), and included SOGIESC issues in their reports of country visits for the first time (disabilities, terrorism).

While more than 50% of all thematic reports mentioned some LGBTI related topics, the level of detail and analysis, as well as which mandates regularly reference SOGIESC issues, indicate that opportunities remain for LGBTI defenders to strengthen this work, including in realtion to specific populations within LGBTI communities, such as LBQ women, trans or intersex persons.

All communications were made with the Independent Expert on SOGI, who since 2016, has played an essential role in adding to discussion of SOGI issues at the UN. According to information published on the OHCHR website, this mandate has conducted 6 country visits, sent 63 communications and prepared 8 thematic reports exclusively centered on violence and discrimination on the basis of SOGI.

Explore our fact sheets below. 

Read this article to find out more about the trends seen over the last year in efforts of Special Procedures to push for better protection of the rights of LGBTI persons.

• Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity 
• Independent Expert on the enjoyment of all human rights by older persons
• Independent Expert on the enjoyment of human rights by persons with albinism
• Independent Expert on foreign debt
   
• Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and practice
• Working Group on arbitrary detention
• Working Group on enforced or involuntary disappearances
• Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises
• Working group on the use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination
• Working Group on people of African descent
   
• Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders
• Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression
• Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association
• Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
• Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of punishment
• Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions
• Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief
• Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
• Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights
• Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health
• Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples
• Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance
• Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants
• Special Rapporteur on minority issues
• Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
• Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, and on the right to non-discrimination in this context 
• Special Rapporteur on the right to education
• Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities
• Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers
• Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy
• Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children
• Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
• Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children
• Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism
• Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons
• Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence
• Special Rapporteur on the right to development
• Special Rapporteur on the right to food
• Special Rapporteur on the implications for human rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes
• Special Rapporteur on the environment

Contact: Tess McEvoy, [email protected]

Photo: Common Wikimedia Ludovic Bertron