In 2022, the CEDAW Committee issued an Individual Communication concerning Rosanna Flamer-Caldera, a lesbian woman, human rights defender, and Executive Director of the only organization in Sri Lanka advocating for the rights of the entire lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex community. To date, the CEDAW Committee has received extensive criticisms concerning its neglect of women from diverse gender identities and sexual orientations. In this Communication, the Committee found that Sri Lanka's criminalization of consensual same-sex relations among women violates Articles 2, 5, 15, and 16 of the Convention. Importantly, the Committee makes clear that non-heterosexual relations fall within the right to marriage and family relations, enshrined in the Convention. With numerous States Parties in the region retaining criminalization, this article analyses the implications of this decision for States Parties in Asia and grapples with the question, “Is this Communication ground-breaking?” and if so, how.

South Asia, as a region, consists of several stateless groups as well as groups at the risk of statelessness. However, none of the South Asian states are parties to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, thus these states do not have specific obligations arising from this Convention to avoid, reduce, or prevent statelessness in the region. In this context, this article ascertains that despite the prevalence of statelessness, there exists state practice and opinio juris in South Asia that point to an emerging customary international law obligation to avoid, reduce, or prevent statelessness.

The recently adopted Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) waiver decision at the World Trade Organization is a grossly inadequate and insincere response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper criticizes the TRIPS waiver for being faulty on several fronts such as: excluding COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics from its fold and focusing only on COVID-19 vaccines; restricting its coverage to only patents and leaving out other intellectual property rights; excluding developed countries that possess manufacturing and technological capability from being eligible exporters of COVID-19 vaccines; and its perplexing silence on the transfer of technology. It will have negligible impact on fighting the pandemic, sets an enfeebled example for the future, and is a classic case of “too little too late”.

International legal discourses clash in violent ways within the state. For example, the international discourse on human rights identifies some individuals who oppose state-sanctioned projects as Indigenous peoples while the international discourse about terrorism may identify them as terrorists. These clashes are occurring throughout the world, particularly surrounding extractive resource projects, but this article considers one example from the Philippines where some B'laan individuals and communities oppose the Tampakan Copper-Gold Mine, and examines how various actors identify those individuals and communities. It explores how some identify them as Indigenous peoples while others identify them as terrorists. In highlighting the violent effects of international law, it investigates how discourse inhibits appreciation of violent erasures and the continuing coloniality of extractive resource development.

The universal system of protection against torture established by the United Nations (UN) is confronted with daily incidents of torture and other cruelties in all regions of the world. Moreover, despite the ratification of UN treaties, most governments lack a genuine commitment to address these abuses. In contrast, the anti-torture safeguards under the UN Convention against Torture and its Optional Protocol are currently being implemented in Taiwan, even though Taiwan is not part of the UN and cannot participate in the international human rights dialogue. The process of incorporation of UN anti-torture documents by a non-UN member is all but easy. This article shows, however, that commitment to combat torture goes beyond the UN treaty system and might be a welcome contribution towards the current debate on fostering compliance with human rights treaties both in Asia-Pacific and around the globe.

This article proposes re-thinking the history of refugee protection in the Southeast Asia region, focusing on the post-World War Two period (1945–1979). It fills a gap in the literature on this period, drawing on archival material. It disrupts a narrative of “human rights exceptionalism” in Southeast Asia. First, it examines the small but powerful role of Southeast Asian states during the drafting of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. These states challenged colonial powers and asserted human rights. Second, it considers the role of key refugee-hosting states in Southeast Asia in developing—with other post-colonial states—regional standards to protect refugees under the auspices of the Asian-African Legal Consultative Committee, the Aliens Principles of 1961 and Bangkok Principles of 1966. Third, it places international and regional action in the domestic context by drawing on the example of Thailand's protection of Vietnamese refugees. It concludes that the approach in the post-WWII years points to an extended history of protecting refugees in Southeast Asia, and valuable lessons from the Global South for the region and beyond.

India acceded to the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women with a Declaration (CEDAW) to Article 5(a) stating that it will implement the principle on gender-based equality only to the extent of non-interference in the personal affairs of its religious communities. The due diligence obligation in the CEDAW, which was adopted through General Recommendation No. 19 in 1992, normatively expanded Article 5 to imply an obligation on nation states to redress traditional cultural attitudes that cause gender-based violence. This article argues that the cultural nature of GBV in India converts the Declaration of India into an inconsistent reservation under public international law. This implies that India's Declaration is an egregious breach of the CEDAW's due diligence obligation. Accession to the CEDAW's Optional Protocol is advocated as a solution to this serious breach. Theoretical implications for the three-stage norm life cycle and epiphenomenal norms are presented.

This paper aims to examine the legitimacy of Ryukyuans/Okinawans’1 right to self-determination (RSD) under international human rights law. To this end, it first details the evolution of the RSD from the traditional right to independence for colonial peoples, to the continuing right to self-governance for wider groups of peoples, which is followed by an analysis of holders of the RSD. The paper then turns to Ryukyu/Okinawa to discuss the RSD of its peoples. Three historical events, the Disposition of Ryukyu, the Treaty of San Francisco, and the reversion of Okinawa to Japan, are analysed from a legal perspective, followed by an examination of the peoplehood of Ryukyuans/Okinawans. These lead to the conclusion that the Ryukyuans/Okinawans may legitimately claim that they possess the “unexercised” RSD as a quasi-non-self-governing people, and that they are entitled to claim the RSD as a “people” under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, and other United Nations declarations.

Denied citizenship and persecuted in Myanmar, the Rohingya have fled to various countries, including Malaysia. However, Malaysia is not a signatory to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol. It also has weak domestic legal and regulatory mechanisms to protect refugees and asylum-seekers. In this paper, the authors study the treatment of Rohingya refugees in Malaysia and suggest how the Malaysian legal system can better protect them by adapting international legal practices.

Agrobiodiversity conservation is vital for food security, maintaining ecological balance, and preserving socio-cultural norms. There is substantial evidence to support that agrobiodiversity hotspots coincide with localized, small-scale peasant food systems. Preserving such food systems is necessary for protecting agrobiodiversity. The current legal framework over agrobiodiversity is fragmented and inadequate. A major portion of this framework is situated within intellectual property law and farmers’ rights law, neither of which are designed to foster sustainable management of agrobiodiversity. In this context, the 2018 Peasants’ Rights Declaration has the potential to fill the gaps in the existing framework. The paper critically analyses the Declaration by exploring some of its legal innovations in improving agrobiodiversity conservation. While some of these innovations are commendable, they are unlikely to be adopted by states owing to their radical nature. Their adoption would require a massive overhaul of the existing agricultural model and power structures embedded within it.

As of 2020, close to 1 billion people are living with mental disorders. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed and intensified the shortcomings in guaranteeing the right to mental health, particularly of the marginalized. The article discusses the international human rights framework with the endeavour of highlighting the non-derogability of the right and the obligations imposed on States in pursuance of it. By discussing the Indian experience the article exemplifies that, despite greater normative clarity, practice has not been brought into conformity in most States, resulting in pre-existing lacunae being amplified during the pandemic. The article proceeds to outline recommendations for States to consider by treating India as a global reference. The overarching conclusion is that while the pandemic has made it even more apparent that the implementation of the rights-framework is deficient, it has also provided an opportunity to advance which can only be availed by operationalizing this framework.