Canada House of Commons approves bill criminalizing conversion therapy
Canada’s House of Commons approved a bill on Tuesday that amends the Criminal Code to criminalize certain activities associated with LGBTQ+ conversion therapy in order to discourage and denounce it. The lower house passed the bill by a vote of 263 to 63 and, it defines “conversion therapy” as “a practice, treatment or service designed [...]
1. Beneficiaries of Gender Discrimination I am a beneficiary of gender discrimination. I know this because in 1986 when I started working as Legal Counsel at the ICC International Court of Arbitration in Paris, France, I was doing a job at which several of my colleagues wondered whether women should be Legal Counsel. All of [...]
Here is How America's Subtle Alterations to Democracy and Social Justice Avoid Political Monopolies
To a U.S. immigrant who grew up (1972-1992) under a de facto dictatorship where election fraud and accepted discrimination were a societal norm, the concepts of fair and transparent elections, “All men are created equal,” and “equal opportunity …” were unfamiliar. They became a substitute of justice for the customary sense of helplessness. I felt [...]
Japan court finds government's failure to recognize same-sex marriage unconstitutional
The Sapporo District Court found Wednesday that the government’s failure to recognize same-sex marriage is unconstitutional because it violates the right to equality. As a member of the Group of Seven, an intergovernmental organization including Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the UK and the US, Japan was the only country that did not recognize same-sex marriage. [...]
The New Zealand government announced Sunday that it will pass legislation banning conversion therapy practices in the country by the end of this year or February next year at the latest. Minister of Justice Kris Faafoi confirmed that the Ministry of Justice is drafting a new piece of legislation to effect the change by making [...]
On This Coming Out Day, The Court Must Let the LGBTQ+ Community In
“Representation matters. I wore my father’s prayer hat, and stood at the steps of the Supreme Court, waving our flag.” – Ibrahim “Ibby” Baig On June 15th, 2020, Ibrahim “Ibby” Baig awaited, like many others, for a decision of paramount importance to the lives of gay Americans to come down from a court which has [...]
Around two years back, the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in its historical judgement of Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India decriminalised homosexuality in the country. However, despite this progressive judgement, certain questions incidental to the homosexual relationships remained unaddressed by both the Apex Court and the Government. One such question pertains to ‘same-sex [...]
Christopher Columbus Langdell, Black Lives Matter and Legal Education
No less than Columbus’ namesake founded U.S. legal education. Christopher Columbus Langdell devised the “case method”—the formalistic “science” of “discovering” law from appellate court opinions through the process of “legal reasoning.” As dean of Harvard Law School in the late nineteenth century, Langdell institutionalized the case method during the eras of Reconstruction, Redemption, and Jim [...]
The Supreme Court created quite a stir recently when it held in Bostock v. Clayton Country, Georgia that Title VII, the major federal anti-employment-discrimination law, protected gay and transgender employees on the same basis as heterosexual employees. Deciding three companion cases involving different employees, the Court filled a major gap in employee protection – most [...]
The difference between justice and equality is that the former is the quality of being fair, while the latter is the state of being equal. To ensure this fairness the Indian constitution has secured Article 15(3) which states that special provisions can be made for women and children. This is the justification for making sexual [...]
