Brazil resolution on sexual orientation: challenges in articulating asexual rights framework from the viewpoint of the global south

In April, 2003 the Brazilian government introduced a historic resolution on ‘Human rights and sexual orientation’. The resolution itself did not go very far as it merely ‘expresses deep concern at the occurrence of violations of human rights in the world against persons on the grounds of their sexual orientation’ and ‘stresses that human rights and fundamental freedoms are the birth right of all human beings, that the universal nature of these rights and freedoms is beyond question and that the enjoyment of such rights and freedoms should not be hindered in any way on the grounds of sexual orientation’.AsiaPacifiQueer Network, Australian National Universit

Envisioning global LGBT human rights : (neo)colonialism, neoliberalism, resistance and hope

Envisioning Global LGBT Human Rights: (Neo)colonialism, Neoliberalism, Resistance and Hope is an outcome of a five-year international collaboration among partners that share a common legacy of British colonial laws that criminalise same-sex intimacy and gender identity/expression. The project sought to facilitate learning from each other and to create outcomes that would advance knowledge and social justice. The project was unique, combining research and writing with participatory documentary filmmaking. This visionary politics infuses the pages of the anthology. The chapters are bursting with invaluable first hand insights from leading activists at the forefront of some of the most fiercely fought battlegrounds of contemporary sexual politics in India, the Caribbean and Africa. As well, authors from Canada, Botswana and Kenya examine key turning points in the advancement of SOGI issues at the United Nations, and provide critical insights on LGBT asylum in Canada. Authors also speak to a need to reorient and decolonise queer studies, and turn a critical gaze northwards from the Global South. It is a book for activists and academics in a range of disciplines from postcolonial and sexualities studies to filmmaking, as well as for policy-makers and practitioners committed to envisioning, and working for, a better future

Brasil, Índia, África do Sul: constituições transformadoras e seu papel nas lutas LGBT

Edição trilíngue: português, espanhol e inglês.Título em espanhol: Brasil, India, Sudáfrica: las constituciones transformadoras y su papel en la lucha de la comunidad LGBTTítulo em inglês: Brazil, India, South África, transformative constitutions and their role in LGBT struggle

Transformative Constitutionalism and the Decriminalisation of the Right to Love (Public Lecture as a part of Changing India Series delivered on 24 September 2018)

The decision on 6th of September 2018 in Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India which struck down the 1860 law criminalizing the lives of LGBT persons marked a historic victory for a vibrant and vociferous LGBT movement. For over seventeen years the movement had been demanding the repeal of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. This talk will trace out the implications of some of the key concepts expounded in the judgment. The key ideas which animate the judgment are rooted in the notion of ‘constitutional morality’ as advocated by Ambedkar and reemphasize the important idea that the Indian Constitution is a ‘transformative constitution’. If this way of thinking, rooted as it in the struggle against the forms of discrimination perpetrated by a conservative social morality becomes more widely accepted India will be less of a majoritarian democracy and more of a constitutional democracy

India's Undeclared Emergency: Constitutionalism and the Politics of Resistance

‘Arvind Narrain’s book is an excellent analysis of the present-day reality of India … he signs off in the last chapter with a positive note about the multiple ways to counter the grave threats. A must read for lawyers and non-lawyers alike.’—Mihir Desai, senior advocate and human rights lawyer ‘Analytically sharp and empirically robust, Arvind Narrain’s Undeclared Emergency … throws a sharp focus on the punitive nature of the legal regime, the criminalisation of dissent and the power exercised by the mob in contemporary India. All those who care for the future of our Republic should read this book.’—Ramachandra Guha, historian and public intellectualThis book is perhaps the first to capture the legal armature of the Indian state in the process of its ongoing metamorphosis into a Hindu-supremacist state … The reader is invited to be, not a mourner at a funeral, but a fighter for change … A book that illuminates and inspires, it is an urgently needed resource for young Indians.’—Kavita Krishnan, secretary, AIPWA; politburo member, CPI-ML ‘A powerful historical chronicle of the tumultuous events between May 2014 to the present … It is at once a comprehensive, well researched and richly indexed book as also a passionate call to all those who are committed to constitutional values … to fight against the totalitarian state from consolidating itself.’—V. Suresh, general secretary, People’s Union for Civil LibertiesIn 1975, the Indira Gandhi government declared Emergency in India, unveiling an era of State excesses, human rights violations, the centralisation of power and the dismantling of democracy. Nearly half a century later, the phrase ‘undeclared emergency’ gathers currency as citizens and analysts struggle to define the nature of India’s present crisis.In Undeclared Emergency, Arvind Narrain presents a devastatingly thorough examination of the nature of this emergency—a systematic attack on the rule of law that hits at the foundation of a democracy, its Constitution. This clear-eyed legal analysis of its implications also documents an ongoing history of constitutional subversion, one that predates the Narendra Modi-led NDA government—a lineage of curtailed freedoms, censorship, preventive detention laws and diluted executive accountability.Is history repeating itself then? Not quite. This book is an account of an inaugural era in Indian history. Narrain shows that the Modi government, unlike the Congress government of 1975, draws on popular support and this raises the dangerous possibility that today’s authoritarian regime could become tomorrow’s totalitarian state. A lament, the Undeclared Emergency is also a war cry. It charts an alternative inheritance of resistance, acts big and small from the Emergency of 1975, to the current day, and times are long gone. Dissent, he says, is an Indian tradition. The Second Coming is at hand, and Narrain reckons that we have a responsibility to determine what it will look like

Obscenity as Defined in Sec. 292, IPC: Do We Need Such a Concept?

Sec. 292 reads For the purpose of Sub. sec (2) book pamphlet......... shall be deemed to be obscene if it is lascivious appeals to the prurient interest or............... the effect.......... .... if taken as a whole, is such as to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely....... to read the matter contained or embodied in it. Judicial interpretation has upheld the Hicken test laid down by Lord Cockburn. I think the test of obscenity is this, whether the tendency of the matter charged as obscene is to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences, and into whose hand a publication of this sort may fal

Criminology and the Homosexual Subject: A Queer Critique

well into the twenty first century the legal structure in its various manifestations continues to produce knowledge of the homosexual as criminal. Equally of import is the role that the constitution of the 'eunuch' as a subject of the criminal law, in fact specifically as a 'criminal tribe,' needs to be understood. How has this impacted the treatment of hijras by the criminal justice system in contemporary times needs to be explored. The essay will explore the implications of the emergence of the homosexual voice for the future of the criminological enterprise.homosexuals, hijras,Criminology,criminal tribe, Sociology, Legal Studies