The right to equality and the guarantee of non-discrimination are bedrock principles of human rights law, enshrined in major treaties and protected by customary international law. While discrimination against women has been recognized as unlawful since the earliest articulations of human rights law, protections against broader forms of gender-based discrimination have evolved over time. In recent decades, major human rights mechanisms have recognized that protection against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender expression, and gender identity are crucial to ensuring equality for all.
Scholarship and advocacy aimed at articulating the obligations owed to women and LGBTQI persons is crucial to identifying gaps in law, policy, and action to protect and fulfill human rights. The Center for Human Rights and Global Justice is home to numerous projects and experts working to advance protections based on sex, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity. This work crosses traditional boundaries imposed by discipline, area of focus, and legal categories.
Center personnel have broad expertise in gender analysis and the human rights of women and LGBTQI persons. Faculty Director Sally Engle Merry is a prolific and award-winning scholar of gender violence, women’s rights movements, and the process of vernacularization of women’s rights claims. Faculty Director and Co-Chair Margaret Satterthwaite co-founded Amnesty International’s program on the rights of LGBTQI persons, worked at UN Women (then UNIFEM) before joining NYU, and has written extensively on gender and human rights. Our staff bring their own expertise to bear, including Legal Director Nikki Reisch, who, in collaboration with NGO partners, has been at the forefront of efforts that successfully persuaded the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women that tax justice is a women’s rights issue.
For a complete record of CHRGJ’s work on gender, women, and LGTBQI persons, visit our searchable Document Center and News and Events archives.
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