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This chapter addresses some questions that are related to global political processes and struggles for reproductive and sexual rights. It argues that sexual rights can be described as the newest topic for international debates about the practices and meaning of human rights. It notes that before 1993, no international instrument important to human rights made reference to sexual rights or sexuality, and that the idea of sexual rights did not exist as part of international human rights discourse. The chapter also reveals the failure to develop a more affirmative and emancipatory notion of sexual rights as a social good that is basic to any adequate notion of human well-being and dignity.

This chapter argues that the right to sexual satisfaction of severely physically and mentally disabled people, and elderly people who suffer from neurodegenerative diseases, can be fulfilled by deploying sex robots. This would enable us to satisfy the sexual needs of many who cannot provide for their own sexual satisfaction without at the same time violating anybody’s right to sexual self-determination. It does not offer a full-blown moral justification of deploying sex robots in such cases, as not all morally relevant concerns can be addressed here; rather, it puts forward a plausible way of fulfilling acute sexual needs without thereby violating anybody’s sexual rights.

This chapter examines psychological theory and research pertaining to children as sexual beings. Childhood sexuality encompasses many issues; self-exploration, biological development, evolutionary psychology, the cultural processes through which kids learn about sex, the cognitions that determine how kids operate sexually, and so forth. The unifying theme throughout this discussion is the recognition of sexual pleasure as the primary reason that humans of all ages engage in some form of sex. The real question, then, is whether the capacity for intense sexual pleasure serves as an entitlement to fundamental sexual rights for kids. The chapter concludes that sexual rights for children must correspond with the onset and psychological significance of pleasure.

For women and men to fully enjoy reproductive and sexual health and rights, legal systems must be modified and many social, economic, and political systems revised. Crucial to achieving these changes is promoting more equitable societies and within them, just gender roles and the adoption of more positive attitudes toward sexuality. This chapter discusses the advances toward reaching a social consensus and its significance in providing a base for developing progressive social policies. It also examines the evidence of an emerging consensus: (1) the magnitude and extension of the decline in fertility as reflected in demographic statistics; (2) the evolution of international agreements among governments and the trends of changes in national laws; and (3) the increasing involvement of civil society as advocates and agents of change.

This chapter focuses on an event in the history of sexuality, more specifically in the history of sexuality as a political issue. In recent years, vastly diverse movements around the politics of sexuality have embraced the notion of “sexual rights.” This concept developed rapidly especially since the UN Conference on Women in Beijing (1995) and in the wake of the global AIDS pandemic. More recently, rights specific to sexual orientation and gender identity have gained prominence, for instance with a 2011 Human Rights Council resolution on sexual orientation and gender identity, and a report to the UN General Assembly that analyzed in a preliminary way the universal human rights of LGBT persons. Issuance of this report and the resolution that commissioned it together signify a historical event in the politics of sexuality.

This chapter examines how the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) expanded sexual rights through privacy from the 1940s to the 1960s. It considers the ACLU's efforts in defending the First Amendment rights of authors, playwrights, and consumers as well as advocates of birth control and nudism. In tracing the ACLU's journey from defending speech to defending sexual practice, the chapter reveals how sexual civil liberties evolved. It also looks at the way Harriet Fleischl Pilpel and other ACLU attorneys expanded sexual civil liberties to include sexual behavior and how the right to privacy transformed the cultural and constitutional landscape in America.

This chapter turns to the perpetuation of homophobia and transphobia as it is inherent in Ecuador's modernization project; and as it has been politically contested in the context of neoliberal and post-neoliberal governance during the 1990s and 2000s. It specifically examines the 1998 and 2008 constitutional reforms as a discursive and institutional realm in which constitutional assembly members struggled to redefine the family and remake the nation. Given their progressive nature with regard to LGBTTI rights, these constitutions are often compared by political observers to post-apartheid South Africa's constitution and, more recently, to Bolivia's 2009 constitution. Advances in LGBTTI rights legislation in Ecuador have occurred at the nexus of homophobic and homopositive discourses—stemming from sexual rights activism, yet also from discursive negotiations within the elected constitutional assemblies concerning homosexuality as a crime versus disease.

This chapter provides a philosophical analysis of the use of chemical castration as a treatment or punishment for aggravated sexual crimes. Its aim is to strip chemical castration of its various associated problems (like its history, exemplified by the Turing case). Even its philosophical analysis is limited in scope, simply attempting to answer the question: Is the use of chemical castration on perpetrators of aggravated sexual crimes a violation of their moral rights? The author concludes that there is not a compelling reason for thinking that the use of chemical castration in these circumstances is a rights violation. Certainly, the pertinent bodily rights do not belong to a category that is non-forfeitable—as might have been supposed, just because chemical castration affects people sexually. Furthermore, it is not easy to explain why the method by which chemical castration changes an individual’s desires is more intrusive or morally problematic than the ways that many stimuli might change our desires.

This chapter discusses how the myth that sexual rights are Western impositions has taken solid root in African theological and political discourse, in spite of the established fact that homosexuality was practiced in traditional societies. Right-leaning American and African religious and political leaders unabashedly claim that homosexual behaviors were introduced by Western progressives—giving them a neocolonial nexus. Sadly, scapegoating the West for what is essentially African diversity in sexual behaviors increases the culture of silence that surrounds sexuality across the continent. However, there is undoubtedly a very public outcry or countermobilization against homosexuality in today's Africa. Postcolonial Africa is highly critical of colonial laws and values, but one colonial legacy is the English law that reads the same across Anglophone Africa.

This chapter clarifies key concepts of the book. It explains the heuristic function of an analytical category, and the utility of employing religious actors as an analytical device. It then defines the analytical category of religious actors as one that covers states and non-state entities which assume the role of interpreters of religion, and in doing so claim a ‘special’ or religious legitimacy that relies primarily on tradition or affect, as opposed to rational-legal features. These definitional contours are further refined by examining the interactions of religious actors in international fora in relation to two topics: sexuality and reproduction, and ‘defamation of religions’. Finally, the chapter discusses the framework of acquisition of rights and obligations in international law: it contrasts the ‘subjects doctrine’ to the ‘capacity approach’, whereby the latter enables the extraction of right and obligations of non-state actors from treaty law and jurisprudence.

The Sustainable Development Goals commit to an international development agenda based on the fundamental principle of leaving no one behind. However, the global convergence between conflict, crisis, migration, poverty, and young populations is driving serious health and human rights consequences for those living in humanitarian settings, especially for sexual and reproductive health and rights. Despite marked progress in the policy sphere over the past quarter-century, with high-level recognition of sexual and reproductive health risks as well as the need to address these concerns, gaps remain in availability, funding, equitable access to and quality of services, and realization of these rights. A common agenda is needed that promotes a rights-based, participatory, empowering approach; strengthens the evidence base for effective interventions; and promotes continued advocacy and leadership. A transformative leadership agenda is vital if women and girls everywhere are to realize their health and well-being.

This chapter illustrates the crucial, decades-long contribution of Uruguayan women’s organisations to the emancipation of women. It does so by analysing the political process leading to the recent legalisation of abortion in Uruguay, as well as the multiple strategies resorted to by the women’s movement to create a social consensus around women’s rights – and sexual and reproductive rights in specific – as integral to human rights. The story of the struggle for the legalisation of abortion in Uruguay also demonstrates the fragility of rights; as Uruguayan women’s organisations have learned the hard way, rights should never be taken for granted. Steps backwards are always possible and emancipation is never complete; further action will always be required to secure rights, as well as to advance new generations of rights.

This chapter examines the controversy surrounding the sexual needs and rights of people with disabilities. More specifically, it asks whether people with disabilities have the right to fulfill their sexual needs and whether it is acceptable to take them to brothels. The chapter provides a culturally specific, historically informed account of prostitution and various sexual services in Japan and the related issues of disability and sexuality as well as concerns over family, democracy and social responsibility, and the future of the national health-care system. It also considers the sexual services offered by barrier-free brothels, sex volunteers, and prostitutes to men with disabilities. Finally, it looks at organizations such as White Hands that emphasize the social welfare aspects of their sexual services, along with the politics of sexual relations involving people with disabilities and sexual rights for such individuals.

During 2016, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued fourteen judgments in contentious cases and seven interpretations of previous judgments that covered a wide variety of issues, ranging from grave human rights violations, such as forced disappearances, to violations of the minimum guarantees of due process. However, it is important to note this year as one in which the protection of sexual and reproductive rights was brought to the fore of the Court’s jurisprudence, and one in which the Court tackled new issues, such as forced sterilization and modern-day slavery.

This chapter focuses on the relationship of gay and lesbian sexual rights to the Israel-Palestine conflict. It first surveys the literature on sexual rights within the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It then examines implications of this regional framing of sexual rights for diasporic locations, specifically the United States and Canada, by surveying the Brand Israel campaign. One of the most prominent features of the Brand Israel campaign is the marketing of a modern Israel as a gay-friendly Israel. The chapter explains this so-called Israeli pinkwashing and its effects. Pinkwashing’s effects are being widely contested, especially at gay and lesbian events and despite the censorship of gay and lesbian groups that actively oppose the Israeli occupation. The chapter also discusses some of the locational politics of the pinkwashing debate.

It is estimated that populations in Africa are afflicted with 24% of the global load of disease with only 13% of the population. This chapter provides theoretical suggestions for studying why this is so. Among these theories are area studies, Africa studies and the World Health Organization’s Social Determinants of Health Framework, which relates social inequality to the study of political and health-providing institutions. The chapter lays out the book’s three case studies and our look at the role of national and international health and secular ngo’s in helping to remedy gendered health inequalities. It lays out the MDG framework of 2000, to be discussed in succeeding chapters.

This chapter illustrates the gradual weakening of Israel’s central government as its judicial system gained power dramatically. Following Menachem Begin’s resignation, an intense rivalry grew between the two major parties, Likud and Labor (formerly Mapai), which would lead to the formation of a national unity government wherein both parties would share the power. The jockeying for power between the parties would later undermine this arrangement and the political system as a whole. Consequently, members of the Knesset were increasingly able to pass laws over the objections of the government. These include laws, in the realms of human rights, basic laws, and the structure of the government and political parties. This legislation would subsequently enable the Supreme Court was thus able to assert its power and pursue a much more activist role, further attenuating the power of the Knesset and the cabinet.

This chapter discusses several human rights cases in which the Supreme Court had played a central role. These cases often involve issues of religion and the state, which raises questions regarding women’s rights, the severe consequences of imposing religious law on the public at large, as well as issues of citizenship, nationality and Jewish identity. Furthermore, in Israel, the coalition system enables parties representing minorities to impose their will on the majority. Hence, time and again the Supreme Court has needed to protect the majority against the power wielded by minorities. In this vein, the chapter looks into notable cases falling under three categories: religion and the state, freedom of expression, and equality.