Slovak Republic: Effort to Ban Same-Sex Marriage Fails
(Feb. 12, 2015) On February 7, 2015, Slovakia held a national referendum on the subject of same-sex marriage. The initiative, designed to strengthen the country’s ban on the practice, failed due to low...
View ArticleChile: Congress Approves Civil Unions Legislation
(Feb. 25, 2015) On January 28, 2015, both houses of Chile’s Congress approved legislation that would allow same-sex and heterosexual couples to enter into civil unions, called Acuerdos de Unión Civil...
View ArticleBrazil: Alimony Now Permitted for Gay Couples
(Mar. 9, 2015) On March 3, 2015, the Brazilian Superior Tribunal of Justice (Superior Tribunal de Justiça, STJ) unanimously granted to one of the partners of a gay union the right to request alimony in...
View ArticleBrazil: Resolutions on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
(Mar. 20, 2015) On March 12, 2015, two resolutions issued by Brazil’s National Council of Anti-Discrimination and Promotion of the Rights of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, Transvestites and Transsexuals...
View ArticleCanada: Province of Ontario to Ban ‘Conversion Therapy’ for LGBT Children
(June 12, 2015) On June 4, 2015, the Canadian province of Ontario passed Bill 77 (Affirming Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Act, 2015, S.O. 2015 C.18,...
View ArticleIsrael: National Labor Court Recognizes Gender-Identity Based Discrimination
(June 15, 2015) On June 2, 2015, Israel’s National Labor Court recognized for the first time that gender and sexual orientation-based discrimination, which is prohibited under section 2 of the Equality...
View ArticleMozambique: New Penal Code Removes Colonial Era Dispositions Against...
(July 6, 2015) On June 29, 2015, a new Penal Code came into effect in Mozambique, 180 days after it was approved and published in the Official Gazette on December 31, 2014. Among other changes, the...
View ArticleCanada: Ontario Court Upholds Decision to Deny Accreditation to Proposed Law...
(July 10, 2015) On July 2, 2015, the Divisional Court of Ontario upheld the legality of a vote taken by Ontario’s Law Society (Law Society of Upper Canada) in April that denied accreditation to the...
View ArticleIsrael: Intended Assets Sharing Presumption Applies to Same-Sex Couples
(Sept. 8, 2015) On August 20, 2015, Israel’s Supreme Court rejected an appeal of a decision of the Tel Aviv District Court recognizing the applicability of the “assets’ sharing presumption” to a...
View ArticleEuropean Court of Human Rights: Decision on Gay Marriage in Italy
(Sept. 14, 2015) On July 21, 2015, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) issued a landmark judgment concerning homosexuals and their right to marry in Italy. In the case of Oliari and Others v....
View ArticleIndonesia: Aceh Province Law Expands Caning Punishment to Adultery and...
(Oct. 28, 2015) A provincial law on criminal offenses under Sharia law, passed in 2014, came into effect on October 23, 2015, in Indonesias Aceh Province, the only part of the country that enforces...
View ArticleNorway: Ethics Body Votes in Favor of Allowing Transgender Males to Keep Ovaries
(Nov. 16, 2015) Under a new draft law on changing one’s legal status formulated by Norway’s Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, men who are born as women and women who are born as men who wish to...
View ArticleJamaica: Challenge to Law on Homosexuality
(Dec. 14, 2015) On December 10, 2015, Jamaican human rights activist Maurice Tomlinson filed a complaint with the country’s Supreme Court of Judicature against some provisions of the Offences Against...
View ArticleEstonia: Legalization of Civil Partnerships
(Jan. 14, 2016) On January 1, 2016, the Registered Partnership Law, which had been passed by the Estonian Parliament in 2014, entered into force. The enforcement of the Law was delayed by the need to...
View ArticleKenya: Government Requires Deletion of Video from Google’s Website
(Mar. 1, 2016) On February 23, 2016, Kenya’s Film Classification Board (KFCB) ordered Google to take a video off its website within one week, because the video depicted nudity and sexual situations...
View ArticleIndonesia: Political Party Proposes Anti-LGBT Law
(Mar. 9, 2016) One Indonesian political party, the People’s Conscience Party (Partai Hati Nurani Rakyat, known by the shortened name Hanura) has proposed that the country enact a law curtailing the...
View ArticleBotswana: Highest Court Rules Government Must Register Gay Rights Advocacy Group
(Mar. 29, 2016) In a unanimous decision on March 16, 2016, the Botswana Court of Appeal, the highest court in the country, upheld a 2014 High Court ruling that found unconstitutional a decision of the...
View ArticleGermany: Court Recognizes Co-Mothers of Child
(July 6, 2016) On June 15, 2016, the German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof, BGH) published a decision issued on April 20 in which it held that a South African law that awards co-motherhood...
View ArticleBelize: Anti-Homosexuality Legal Provision Struck Down for First Time in...
(Aug. 19, 2016) On August 10, 2016, the Supreme Court of Belize declared unconstitutional the country’s legal provision banning sodomy. (Jaclyn Belczyk, Belize Top Court Strikes Down Anti-Homosexuality...
View ArticleAustralia: State Legislation to Remove Barriers to Changing Sex on Birth...
(Aug. 22, 2016) On August 18, 2016, the Attorney-General of the Australian State of Victoria introduced the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Amendment Bill 2016 in the state parliament. The...
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