14 DAY TRIAL // It's hard to accept others that are not like us.
And it's easier to classify them as abnormal.
Now 29 international human rights experts, led by Professor Michael O'Flaherty of University of Nottingham and member of the UN Human Rights Committee, has elaborated groundbreaking international legal principles on sexual orientation and gender identity.
The groups compassed a former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN independent experts, current or ex members of human rights treaty bodies, judges, academics and human rights defenders.
The "Yogyakarta Principles", named so after the Indonesian city, where the meeting took place, are aimed against worldwide violence, discrimination and abuse, by governments, the UN human rights system, national human rights institutions, non-governmental organizations, and others.
The 29 principles released in the Yogyakarta Principles on the Application of International Human Rights Law in Relation to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity come with the first ever set of principles on sexual orientation and gender identity, and rely on a comprehensive study of current international human rights laws.
The principles signal the legal obligations of all States to accomplish with the universal human rights protections.
The release of "Yogyakarta Principles" adds to the 2006 UN Human Rights Council's session in Geneva, where 54 States called for stopping violence directed against the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. "States have the primary obligation to respect, protect, and promote human rights," said O'Flaherty. "Ending violence and abuse against people because of their sexual orientation or gender identity must become a global priority for governments."
The Yogyakarta Principles have emerged as a reaction to well-documented patterns of abuses toward individuals because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity.
Reports from all over the world, made by human rights defenders, present human rights violations like extrajudicial executions, violence and torture, repression of free speech and assembly, and discrimination in work, health, education, access to justice, and immigration.