Understanding global security - Peter Hough

SOCIAL IDENTITY AS A THREAT TO SECURITY
of homosexuals and other minority sexualities. The UN has been unable to reach a
consensus to give the same status to sexual freedom as religious or political freedom
in international human rights law. The right to have same-sex relationships is
not covered in the UN Declaration or Covenants and the extermination of people on
grounds of their sexual practices is not included in the1948 Genocide Convention.
Some tentative steps in the direction of securing global human security for homosexuals
have been taken, however. In 1991 Amnesty International began including
within their category of ‘prisoners of conscience’ (those whose release they demand)
homosexuals imprisoned for private consensual sexual activity. The European Court
of Human Rights have interpreted Article 8 of the European Convention on Human
Rights, which upholds ‘Respect for Private and Family Life’, to include gay rights.
As a result of this, homosexuality was decriminalized in Northern Ireland (1981), the
Republic of Ireland (1988) and Cyprus (1993). The UN Human Rights Committee
similarly ended the criminal prosecution of homosexuals in Tasmania, Australia with
a ruling in the 1994 Toonen Case. The Human Rights Committee does not have official
judicial powers but was asked for its opinion on this case by the Federal Government
of Australia before repealing the Tasmanian law. Despite such developments, the
state-sanctioned incarceration, and even execution, of people for private, consensual
acts persists in many parts of the contemporary world. Persecution on these grounds
is still persistent enough in the liberal, democratic world to ensure that enthusiasm
for extending the reach of global protection to individuals for this particular form
of discrimination has not, as yet, been sufficient to overcome the usual barriers of
sovereignty.
The disabled
By 2003 efforts by activists to establish a global convention securing the rights of
disabled persons from persecution were continuing, but were still some way from
realization. In the 1970s the recognition that the half a billion (Despouy 2002) or so
people in the world restricted by mental, physical or sensory impairment were not
explicitly covered in existing international human rights legislation led to a series
of General Assembly declarations seeking to rectify this. The 1971 Declaration on
the Rights of Mentally Retarded Persons and 1975 Declaration on the Rights
of Disabled Persons sought to ensure that the disabled were covered by the UN
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. A World Programme of Action Concerning
Disabled Persons was adopted by the General Assembly in 1982 and launched
alongside the UN Decade for Disability (1983–92). Also established at this time, a
Special UN Rapporteur on Disability was appointed within the Commission for Social
Development. This sought to advance the economic rights of the disabled and led
to the General Assembly, in 1993, adopting the Standard Rules on the Equalization
of Opportunities for Persons With Disabilities (a non-binding agreement).
Hence, it has gradually been confirmed in international law that the disabled
are ‘human’ and entitled to the same protective rights as others. The disabled,
however, have not as yet been recognized as a particularly vulnerable grouping
of humanity requiring special protection in the way that women, migrants and
children have (see Table 5.5). The 1987 discussions in the General Assembly over a
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