Discussions of LGBTQI+ rights at the United Nations have included resolutions and joint statements in the United Nations General Assembly and the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), attention to the expert-led human rights mechanisms (such as the United Nations Treaty Bodies and Special Procedures), as well as by the UN Agencies.
As of 2025, same-sex marriage is legally performed and recognized in 38 UN member states.
History Since its founding in 1945, the United Nations political bodies had not discussed LGBTQ rights (regarding equality regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity) until 1994 through the favorable resolution of the Toonen v. Australia case by the UN Human Rights Committee.Toonen v. Australia, Communication No. 488/1992, U.N. Doc CCPR/C/50/D/488/1992 (1994).
In April 2003, Brazil presented a resolution prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. However, in the ensuing debates the Commission voted to postpone discussions on the resolution until 2004.
In December 2006, the discussions expanded to include gender identity, when Norway presented a joint statement on human rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity at the Commission on Human Rights on behalf of 54 states. This was followed by a joint statement presented at the General Assembly by Argentina on behalf of 66 states in December 2008. The 2008 statement in support of LGBTQ rights in the General Assembly prompted a statement backed by the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in opposition to LGBTQ rights. Both statements remain open for signature, and neither has been officially adopted by the General Assembly.
On 17 June 2011, South Africa led a resolution at the UNHRC requesting that the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) draft a report "documenting discriminatory laws and practices and acts of violence against individuals based on their sexual orientation and gender identity" to follow-up and implementation of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action. The resolution passed with 23 votes in favour to 19 against, with 3 abstentions. It was the first such resolution and was hailed as "historic".
The report, which came out in December 2011, documented human rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity, including hate crimes, criminalization of homosexuality, and discrimination. High Commissioner Navi Pillay called for equitable ages of consent; comprehensive laws against discrimination based on sexual orientation; prompt investigation and recording of hate crime incidents; the repeal of laws criminalizing homosexuality; and other measures to ensure the protection of the rights of LGBTQ persons. The text of the report from the UNHRC is dated on 17 November 2011.Discriminatory laws and practices and acts of violence against individuals based on their sexual orientation and gender identity, A.HRC/19/41
In July 2014, the United Nations (as an employer) announced it would extend equal benefits to employees in same-sex unions entered into in jurisdictions where they are legal.
In September 2014, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Uruguay led on a follow-up resolution at the UNHRC. This second resolution on "human rights, sexual orientation and gender identity" passed with an increased vote margin (25 to 14, 7 abstentions), reflecting the trend for increased support by member states to address these issues at the international level. It requested the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to update the 2011 report "with a view to sharing good practices and ways to overcome violence and discrimination, in application of existing international human rights law and standards". The update was presented to the Human Rights Council in June 2015.
In 2016, the UNHRC passed a resolution to appoint an Independent Expert to find the causes of violence and discrimination against people due to their gender identity and sexual orientation, and discuss with governments about how to protect those people. This long-term OHCHR-based mandate has been seen as the UN's "most overt expression of gay rights as human rights".
Also in 2016, the UN Security Council condemned the Orlando nightclub shooting; this statement marked the first time the U.N. Security Council used language recognizing violence targeting the LGBT community. Background
In the 1980s, early United Nations reports on the HIV/AIDS pandemic made some reference to homosexuality.
In its 1994 decision in Toonen v. Australia, the UN Human Rights Committee—which is responsible for the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)—declared that laws criminalizing consensual same-sex relations between adults are in violation of international human rights law.
In September 1995, sexual orientation became a topic of debate in the negotiations on the Draft of the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action at the 4th World Conference on Women. While the proposed language on "sexual orientation" was eventually dropped from the text, it was the first time governments took a public and explicit stance for or against the inclusion and recognition of sexual orientation as part of women's right to control their sexuality. At this conference, Beverley Palesa Ditsie became the first openly lesbian person to address the United Nations regarding LGBT issues, calling for States to adopt resolutions that recognized sexual diversity.
In 2003, Brazil tabled a Resolution at the UN Commission on Human Rights, stressing that human rights apply to all human beings regardless of sexual orientation. The resolution was indefinitely deferred (the Commission itself ceased in 2006 when the UN replaced it with the Human Rights Council). Since 2008, the 34 member countries of the Organization of American States have unanimously approved a series of resolutions affirming that human rights protections extend to sexual orientation and gender identity. Since 2002, the UN General Assembly has included a reference to sexual orientation in its biennial resolutions on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions, as did the former Commission on Human Rights in the year 2000 and from 2002 to 2005. The latter had also addressed the use of the death penalty for sexual relations between consenting adults in its annual resolutions on the death penalty between 2002 and 2005.
, same-sex relationships were illegal in 76 countries and punishable by death in five.
In recent years, the General Assembly resolution on executions also covered gender identity as a ground for protection.
Joint statements A series of joint statements on sexual orientation and gender identity by Member States at the UN General Assembly and Human Rights Council between 2006 and 2011 provides evidence of increasing support for the issues among UN Member States.
Following meetings between international advocacy leader Louis-Georges Tin and French Minister of Human Rights and Foreign Affairs Rama Yade in early 2008, Yade announced that she would appeal at the UN for the universal decriminalization of homosexuality; the appeal was quickly taken up as an international concern. Co-sponsored by France (which then held the rotating presidency of the EU) and the Netherlands on behalf of the EU, the declaration had been intended as a resolution; it is decided to use the format of a declaration of a limited group of states because there was not enough support for the adoption of an official resolution by the General Assembly as a whole. The declaration was read out into the General Assembly Record by Ambassador Jorge Argüello of Argentina on 18 December 2008—the first declaration concerning gay rights read in the General Assembly. The statement includes a condemnation of violence, harassment, discrimination, exclusion, stigmatization, and prejudice based on sexual orientation and gender identity that undermine personal integrity and dignity. It also includes condemnation of killings and executions, torture, arbitrary arrest, and deprivation of economic, social, and cultural rights on those grounds. The statement asserts: "we recall the statement in 2006 before the Human Rights Council by fifty four countries requesting the President of the Council to provide an opportunity, at an appropriate future session of the Council, for discussing these violations". Additionally, it says "we commend the attention paid to those issues by special procedures of the Human Rights Council and treaty bodies and encourage them to continue to integrate consideration of human rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity within their relevant mandate", indicating the Yogyakarta Principles, which provide definitions in detail on sexual orientation and on gender identity as a document on international human rights law.The Preamble of The Yogyakarta Principles
Support Several speakers addressing a conference on the declaration noted that in many countries laws against homosexuality stemmed as much from the British colonial past as from alleged religious or tradition reasons. Voicing France's support for the draft declaration, Rama Yade asked: "How can we tolerate the fact that people are stoned, hanged, decapitated and tortured only because of their sexual orientation?" UK-based activist Peter Tatchell said of the declaration:
Signatories 96 member-states of the United Nations have sponsored the declaration in support of LGBTQ+ rights in the General Assembly, in the UNHRC, or in both. Sponsoring nations are listed below.In turnaround, US signs UN gay rights document. Reuters. March 18, 2009
Africa
(formerly opposition)
(formerly opposition) (initiative) Americas
(initiative)
(initiative)
Asia
Europe
(initiative)
(initiative) Signed as "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia"
(initiative)
Oceania
(formerly opposition)
Opposition Among the first to voice opposition for the declaration, in early December 2008, was the Holy See's Permanent Observer at the United Nations, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, who claimed that the declaration could be used to force countries to recognise same-sex marriage: "If adopted, they would create new and implacable discriminations. For example, states which do not recognise same-sex unions as 'matrimony' will be pilloried and made an object of pressure." A key part of the Vatican opposition to the draft Declaration relates to the concept of gender identity. In a statement on 19 December, Archbishop Migliore noted: "In particular, the categories 'sexual orientation' and 'gender identity', used in the text, find no recognition or clear and agreed definition in international law. If they had to be taken into consideration in the proclaiming and implementing of fundamental rights, these would create serious uncertainty in the law as well as undermine the ability of States to enter into and enforce new and existing human rights conventions and standards." However, Archbishop Migliore also made clear the Vatican's opposition to legal discrimination against homosexuals: "The Holy See continues to advocate that every sign of unjust discrimination towards homosexual persons should be avoided and urges States to do away with criminal penalties against them." In an editorial response, the Italian newspaper called the Vatican's reasoning "grotesque", claiming that the Vatican feared a "chain reaction in favour of legally recognised homosexual unions in countries, like Italy, where there is currently no legislation."