Working Together: Human Rights and the Sustainable Development Goals (with Sandra Fredman)
The United Nations adopted the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015. They aim to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all people. The goals provide policy objectives for...
UK Reform of Gender Recognition and the Commission for Equality and Human Rights
The UK Government’s consultation on reforming the Gender Recognition Act 2004 proposes making it easier for trans people to change legal sex or gender. Commentary supporting reform has relied upon...
Indian Supreme Court Decriminalises Adultery: A Step Closer to Criminalising Marital Rape
In the landmark decision in Joseph Shine v Union of India on 27 September 2018, the Indian Supreme Court unanimously struck down a 150-year old penal provision criminalising adultery as...
Indian Supreme Court Strikes Down Ban on Women’s Entry into Religious Temple
Recently, a (4:1) majority of a five-judge bench of the Indian Supreme Court in Indian Lawyers Association v. State of Kerala upheld the right of women to worship in the...
Tackling India’s Devadasi System – A Matter of Policing and Public Order?
In September 2017, India’s National Human Rights Commission issued notices to the states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu about the dedication of young girls to the Devadasi system. However,...
Gender Recognition Reform – The Current Debate is Misconceived
The Gender Recognition Act 2004 (‘GRA’) allows transgender people in England and Wales to be legally recognised in their new gender. The government has acknowledged that the current process is...
Women, Poverty, Equality: The Role of CEDAW (with Meghan Campbell)
In September 2015, the UN adopted the Sustainable Development Goals to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all people. The Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs, have made...
Patchy Implementation of the Law is Failing India’s Girls
India is suffering from a supposedly ancient yet timely problem. In violation of the law and Constitution, India’s girls are vanishing. It has been reported by government officials that more...
Discipline and Punish: How Anti-Beggary Laws in India are used to Criminalize Transgender Persons
The Delhi High Court in a landmark judgment (Harsh Mander v. Union of India and Karnika Sawney v. Union of India) has held the Bombay Prevention of Begging Act, 1959,...
The Sabarimala Temple Ban: An ‘Untouchable’ Rule
On 1st August, 2018, the Supreme Court of India concluded its hearing on a crucial matter regarding the Sabrimala Temple in the State of Kerala. The case deals with the...
Promoting ‘Gender Ideology’: Constitutional Court of Bulgaria Declares Istanbul Convention Unconstitutional
On July 27 Bulgaria’s Constitutional Court ruled that the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (often called the “Istanbul Convention”) contravenes the...
Women’s Rights and the Proposed Changes to the Gender Recognition Act
In this post we use the word women to refer to individuals born as women (also known as ‘natal women’). The current government consultation on proposed changes to the Gender...
