Same-Sex Couples Must Pick Their Battles in Hong Kong Courts
By David S. Ma
The Repulse Bay Front Lawn, a popular wedding venue in Hong Kong. Photo by Jessie Fung
In 2018, three individuals independently applied for judicial review in Hong Kong to seek the recognition of same-sex marriage on constitutional grounds. This article summarizes the judgments of the Hong Kong Court of First Instance (“HKCFI”) on two of these applications. The third application (TF v Secretary for Justice HCAL2648/2018) was stayed, and there was no update at the time of writing.
More...
Interview with Nils Muižnieks
for
International Human Rights Day 2020
Part II
By Silan Celebi and Felisa Tibbitts
The first part of the Human Rights Here interview with Nils Muižnieks, the Regional Director for Europe of Amnesty International, was published on International Human Rights Day, December 10th, 2020. In this second part of the interview, he presents his opinions on current human rights issues in Europe.
Source: The London Free Press
Source: Pixabay
Manvi Khanna
National Law University Odisha, Cuttack
https://www.linkedin.com/in/manvi-khanna-6a960815b/
In the midst of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, the surge in cases of gender-based violence globally is another shadow pandemic and public health emergency that requires intervention by governments across the world. Nationwide lockdowns imposed as a containment measure have forced people to stay indoors for their safety as well as that of others. Unfortunately, homes are not the safest places for victims of domestic violence. Every third woman in the world has been physically abused by her spouse/partner. As per the recent statistics, during the 68 day period of lockdown (25 March 2020 to 31 May 2020) in India, 1477 complaints were made to the National Commission for Women, which is the highest number of complaints recorded during the similar time period in the last ten years, keeping in mind the fact that around 77% of the cases in the country go unreported.
More...
Felisa Tibbitts
Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM), Utrecht University, The Netherlands
f.l.tibbitts@uu.nl
Some years ago, when teaching a human rights course at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, I noticed that the composition of my students was overwhelmingly female. I made a mental note of this and began asking colleagues who were teaching human rights in other higher education institutions about the gender balance in their classrooms. It was the same story: mostly women.
More...
Photo credits: Anthony Tran - Unsplash
Adriana van Dooijeweert
President, Netherlands Institute for Human Rights
Introduction
Just like everywhere in the world, also in the Netherlands violence against women is a widespread and serious problem. The Netherlands Institute for Human Rights (the Dutch national human rights institution) has had this issue on the agenda since its establishment. It has, for example, encouraged the Netherlands to ratify the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention) and discussed with Dutch government officials and professionals, on various occasions, the human rights aspects of violence against women.
More...