Yogyakarta Principles Advance LGBT Rights

The "Yogyakarta Principles"-a set of comprehensive guidelines on sexual orientation, gender identity, and human rights-were launched at the end of last month, signaling a landmark advance in the struggle for basic rights as well as gender equality. Human Rights Watch was part of a secretariat supporting the work of the 29 international experts who developed the principles. The resulting document, named after the city in Indonesia where it was adopted, sets legal standards for how governments and other actors should end violence, abuse, and discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. The launch of the Principles represents an opportunity to spark awareness of abuses against LGBT people, frame the widening debate over those abuses in terms of human rights, and press governments and international organizations to encode basic protections in law and policy.