Battling for Equality: The Court of Appeal Rules No Benefits for Same-sex Spouses
The Hong Kong Court of Appeal recently overturned the Court of First Instance’s decision that the same-sex spouse of a senior civil servant should be granted spousal benefits. The judicial...
Canadian Supreme Court Deeply Divided on Religious Freedom in Faith-Based Law School Cases
Earlier this summer, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) wrote the final chapter of a years-long saga concerning the fate of a proposed law school at Trinity Western University (TWU),...
The Indian Supreme Court Reserves Judgment on the De-criminalisation of Homosexuality
In 2009, the High Court of Delhi handed down a landmark judgment in Naz Foundation v NCT of Delhi. It read down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which...
A Masterpiece of Judicial Avoidance?
Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, 584 U.S. (2018), the U.S. Supreme Court’s blockbuster case, has been decided. The questions in dispute: 1. Can a person, exercising religious...
Paying Lip Service to the CJEU: The Unsurprising Decision of the Constitutional Court of Romania in the Coman Case
On June 5, the Court of Justice of the European Union (‘CJEU’) held in Coman and Others that Member States should grant a right of residence to same–sex spouses of...
“A New Form of Discrimination”: Civil Partnerships for Different-Sex Couples in the UK Supreme Court
Civil partnerships were introduced by the New Labour government in the UK in 2005 to give same-sex couples many of the protections and rights afforded to married couples without actually...
Are Christian bakers part of the wedding cakes they make; and what follows if they are?
Is making a cake for a gay wedding the same as making a cake with an anti-gay message? This equivalence was drawn by conservative judge, Justice Gorsuch, in the US...
Adrian Coman v. Romania: A Small Victory with Wasted Potential
On 5 June 2018, the CJEU released its much-anticipated judgment on Adrian Coman and Others v. Romania. This followed from Advocate General Wathelet’s Opinion on 11 January 2018. In the...
Masterpiece Cakeshop and Discriminatory Intent
On July 19, 2012, Charlie Craig and David Mullins visited Masterpiece Cakeshop in suburban Colorado, asking the owner, Jack Phillips, to design and create a cake for their upcoming wedding....
Fighting for the Right to Donate Blood: Reviewing Changes to the UK’s Separate, but Equal, Policy Towards LGBT+
The UK’s current policy guidelines on donating blood have a complex history of misassumptions and homophobic rhetoric that, to this day, still requires people to divulge intimate information around their...
Cakes and the Conscience Wars
Last week, the U.K. Supreme Court heard argument in Lee v. Ashers Baking Company. The case involves a baker whose Christian beliefs led him to refuse to bake a cake...
A Step Closer to Equality: LGBTQ+ Rights in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
In a landmark advisory opinion delivered on January 9th, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights stated that the twenty-three states parties to the American Human Rights Convention must legalize same-sex...
