{"id":1093,"date":"2011-12-14T08:16:28","date_gmt":"2011-12-14T13:16:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=1093"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:25:45","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:25:45","slug":"lgbt-rights-american-advocacy-at-the-united-nations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2011\/12\/14\/lgbt-rights-american-advocacy-at-the-united-nations\/","title":{"rendered":"LGBT Rights: American Advocacy at the United Nations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peter Dunne<\/em><\/p>\n

Much has, and will, be said about Hillary Clinton\u2019s recent remarks on LGBT rights, and the accompanying memorandum which President Obama\u00a0released<\/a>\u00a0on Tuesday morning. However, I think that there are, at this stage,\u00a0a few points worthy of particular note.<\/p>\n

First, in addition to the humility with which the Secretary of State addressed America\u2019s own record on LGBT rights, she also acknowledged that it is the LGBT activists, those actually on the ground in the Global South, who ultimately must lead the way. While Governments and other straight allies are vital to the success of any LGBT rights movement, they cannot be the ones who drive reform.<\/p>\n

These sentiments are particularly important given the announcement by David Cameron that the United Kingdom would begin to\u00a0condition aid<\/a>\u00a0to majority world countries on the repeal of anti-gay and transgender laws. Mr. Cameron\u2019s plan, while no doubt developed with good intentions, disregards the will, advice and strategy of LGBT activists in the global south. Rather than being a means of achieving change, aid conditionality merely adds to the problems which advocates must address. It\u00a0plays into the idea that homosexuality is an enforced \u2018western concept\u2019,\u00a0creates the perception that the LGBT community are\u00a0a cause of economic hardship and\u00a0leads to resentment among other human rights activists. Aid conditionality can also\u00a0directly disadvantage gay individuals, who have an already restricted access to services and thus are disproportionately affected when there is a reduction in foreign aid.<\/p>\n

In his memorandum, President Obama urges diplomats to take all actions necessary to ensure respect for LGBT rights. This should not include aid conditionality. Rather, diplomats should seek alternative methods, ideally in consultation with local activists and non-governmental organizations. One suggestion, which was mentioned at LGBT\u00a0Side Event in New York City this week\u00a0is that while not conditioning aid on LGBT rights, foreign aid donors may nonetheless reward those countries who effectively enact protections for, or remove discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons. In this way, LGBT people cannot be accused of \u2018depriving\u2019 majority world countries of important aid, while\u00a0minority world countries can offer a real incentive for States to take a progressive stance on the issue of sexual orientation and gender identity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Peter Dunne Much has, and will, be said about Hillary Clinton\u2019s recent remarks on LGBT rights, and the accompanying memorandum […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-hD","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1093\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}