Letter to Council of Europe Committee of Ministers
Additional protocol #12 to the ECHR
As ILGA-EUROPE's submission to THE COUNCIL of EUROPE the following letter has been sent to the secretary general of the Council of Europe:
We understand that, pursuant to Decision No. CM/2/110398 of the Committee of Ministers, the Steering Committee on Human Rights is in the process of elaborating a draft protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights broadening the field of application of Article 14.
As you will be well aware, the list of grounds included in Article 14 has not been changed in the nearly 50 years since the introduction of the Convention. The European Court of Human Rights has said that "the Convention is a living instrument, ... which must be interpreted in the light of present-day conditions". We support this view. Indeed, we believe that if the Convention is to be a "living instrument" and to continue to safeguard the rights of the citizens of Europe effectively, it is essential that it be updated from time to time to take account of developments in society and in society's understanding of human rights.
The revision of Article 14 envisaged by the Committee of Ministers presents an historic opportunity to reconsider the list of grounds of discrimination. The attached submission sets out our detailed arguments for the explicit inclusion of 'sexual orientation' in the list of grounds. Within the next month, we plan to submit a separate submission by Press for Change, a member organisation of ILGA-Europe, on explicit inclusion of a separate Article 14 ground dealing with discrimination against transsexual and other transgendered persons. While these two submissions will cover the grounds of primary concern to our organisation, we would also support the inclusion of two other grounds, those of age and disability, which, like sexual orientation, are found in the new Article 13 of the EC Treaty.
In this additional submission we set out our detailed arguments for inclusion of gender identity.
We very much hope that the Steering Committee and the Committee of Ministers will support these suggestions. Their implementation will, we believe, greatly enhance the relevance of the Convention to the people of Europe on the threshold of the 21st century.
Submission on sexual orientation (2000)
