APA MEMBERS ADVOCATE AT THE HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL
The 50th session of the Human Rights Council (HRC) took place from 13 June - 8 July 2022 in Geneva. 4 APA members from Equal AF, Forum for Dignity Initiatives, JOICFP, YUWA Nepal were supported to attend the first week of the session along with APA's ED, and advocated for the renewal of the mandate of the Independent Expert on SOGI, as part of an advocacy-in-practice training organized the Learning for Change (L4C) initiative at RFSU (APA is the facilitator of a cluster at L4C).
The 47 Member States on the Human Rights Council (HRC) voted on the renewal of the Mandate on 7 July – the final results were Yes 23; No 17; and 7 abstentions.
In the lead up to the vote, APA Members, along with CSO activists from around the world led by ILGA, played an important role by outreaching to their government representatives in order to build support for the renewal. They shared knowledge and evidence about the importance of the work of the IE on SOGIE for Member States, supported advocacy messaging around the #RenewIESOGI campaign, and countered negative opposition narratives.
Resolution (A/HRC/50 02/L.2) on the Mandate of the Independent Expert on protection from violence and discrimination related to sexual orientation and gender identity, was presented by a “core group” of 7 Latin American States - Mexico, Uruguay, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica.
The opposition to the renewal of the Mandate of the IE on SOGI was strong, and much of it came from the Asia Pacific region along with Africa.
Pakistan, on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), presented 13 hostile amendments seeking to weaken the text of the Resolution - including removing references to SOGI and the call for the mandate to be renewed. Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Malaysia (amongst others) also made statements in support of the OIC proposed amendments.
The Asia Pacific Member States on the HRC supporting the renewal of the Mandate were Japan, Marshall Islands, Republic of Korea and at times joined by Nepal. They played an important role as many of the votes were very close.
Overall, there were a total of 14 votes on the text of the Resolution, as the HRC Members had to vote on each proposed amendment as well as the Resolution itself. If you would like to see how the Asia Pacific region voted, find results charted here.
One amendment passed, with the others narrowly defeated. It added this language to the Resolution: “Reaffirming the sovereign right of each country to develop its national laws, in accordance with its international human rights obligations”.
The countries from our region on the HRC that were not supportive were China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Qatar, UAE. India abstained on several of the votes, including the final vote (joined by Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan).
On 7 July, the Resolution to renew the mandate of the Independent Expert on SOGI passed and, for the first time, the text in the Resolution explicitly condemns legislation that criminalizes consensual same sex conducts and diverse gender identities, and calls on States to amend discriminatory legislation and combat violence on grounds of SOGI.
