SR

Strengthening human rights of LGBTQI+ people in Europe: enhancing standards, improving monitoring and broadening cooperation

Pride House, 16 September 2022 (15:00-16:30)

During the first decades of the 21st century human rights and fundamental freedoms of LGTIQ+ people improved in most European countries. The recommendation CM/Rec(2010)5 of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers to member states on measures to combat discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity was a mile-stone in this respect. The European Commission adopted in November 2020 its first “LGBTIQ Equality Strategy 2020-2025”. The Commission strategy strives to build a Union where diversity is celebrated as part of its collective richness. At the same time the monitoring bodies of the Council of Europe as well as the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) observe an increase of hate speech and violence against LGBTQI+ people and uneven progress towards equality over the last years. This panel will inquire how cooperation for human rights can be strengthened across Europe, discuss the challenges for monitoring and reporting on progress and deficiencies for realizing fundamental rights and freedoms by LGBTIQ+ people and raise the question which role enhanced international norms and standards, including EU law and international conventions, can play in strengthening human rights.

  • Moderator: Goran Miletic - Organising Committee of EuroPride 2022 and member for Kosovo and Serbia for European Commission on Sexual Orientation Law (https://www.sexualorientationlaw.eu/members#miletic)
  • Key note speaker: Robert Biedroń - member of the European Parliament, Chair of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality in the EP
  • Speakers:

    Terry Reintke (member of the European Parliament, co-chair of The Intergroup on LGBTI Rights in the European Parliament)
    Evelyne Paradis, Executive Director, ILGA Europe
    Tobias Flessenkemper (Head of the Council of Europe Office in Belgrade)
    Lene Løvdal (member for Norway for European Commission on Sexual Orientation Law https://www.sexualorientationlaw.eu/members#lovdal)