Amnesty International is putting its weight behind an Australian bill seeking to legalize same-sex marriage in that country, claiming that “internationally recognised” non-discrimination norms dictate such a result, a claim strongly disputed by pro-family organisations.
In a submission to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee of Australia’s Senate, Amnesty’s Australian affiliate contends that laws limiting the right to marry to opposite-sex couples amounts to “arbitrary discrimination” in contravention of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
The group further interprets a provision of the ICCPR guaranteeing adults the right to enter into “consensual marriage” as applying to same-sex unions. Critics contend this distorts the meaning of the word “marriage” without regard to context and the apparent intent of the drafters. The ICCPR provision cited, Article 23, states that “The right of men and women of marriageable age to marry and to found a family shall be recognised,” and that “No marriage shall be entered into without the free and full consent of the intending spouses.”
Underscoring what critics say is the problem of United Nations (UN) treaty monitoring bodies exceeding their mandates and seeking to reinterpret treaties to include novel concepts not agreed upon by those who negotiated or ratified the treaties, Amnesty asserts that “For more than a decade, non-discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation has been an internationally recognised principle which has been endorsed by UN treaty bodies and numerous inter-governmental human rights bodies.”
Specifically, Amnesty cites interpretations of the ICCPR and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights by their respective treaty monitoring bodies as forming a soft-law jurisprudence in favor of a new non-discrimination category.
The creation of such a non-discrimination category is hotly-contested among UN member states, however. To date, efforts to enshrine “sexual-orientation and gender identity” as a category on par with ones such as race and religion in a legally binding document have been repeatedly rejected.
Amnesty points to a French-initiated statement signed by roughly 65 member states, including Australia, last December asserting the existence of a non-discrimination category based on sexual orientation and gender identity in support of Amnesty’s call to allow same-sex couples to enter into “a legally binding union of couples, otherwise known as marriage.”
However, although Australia is led by a Labour government, it is opposed to same-sex marriage.
A contemporaneous counterstatement, however, signed by nearly 60 nations, principally from the Islamic world, Africa and Oceania, along with independent statements made by Russia, Belarus and the Holy See, pointed out that no non-discrimination category based on sexual orientation and gender identity exists in international law. Amnesty’s submission makes no reference to the counterstatement.
Meanwhile, legislation passed in the Australian Capital Territory granting same sex couples the right to legally binding ceremonies will “almost certainly” be vetoed by the Federal Government, The Canberra Times reported, although this could not be officially confirmed.
The newspaper cites a spokesman for Federal Minister for Home Affairs Brendan O’Connor saying the Government’s position was unchanged and that such provisions “undermined and mimicked” marriage, however he would not say whether the new laws would be disallowed.
“We will need to review it in light of whether it’s consistent with other national approaches to relationship recognition,” the spokesman reportedly said.
The new laws will take effect next week and any civil partnerships registered under them between their enactment and any disallowance from the Federal Government will remain valid, the report added.