Weil lawyers contribute to landmark victory for LGBT rights in Columbia
Saturday, February 10, 2007
- Organization: Weil Gotshal & Manges
On Wednesday, February 8th, in a landmark decision that could impact same-sex partnership rights across the globe, the Constitutional Court of Colombia held that same-sex couples are entitled to register their domestic partnerships and receive certain economic benefits on equal terms with opposite-sex couples.
The decision overturned a 1990 law establishing domestic partnership benefits but limiting such benefits to opposite-sex couples by defining a "partnership" as existing only between a man and a woman. The Court had previously considered a challenge to the statute in 1996; although it upheld the law at that time, the Court's decision provided that it would be willing to reconsider the issue should social and legal circumstances significantly change. In August 2006, Colombia Diversa, a Colombian umbrella organization working for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights, renewed its facial challenge to the law on equal protection grounds.
Weil Gotshal, on behalf of the New York City Bar Association's Vance Center for International Justice Initiatives, drafted an amicus brief for submission to the Constitutional Court demonstrating that, since 1996, courts and human rights bodies throughout the world have struck down measures that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation in the provision of economic benefits. The brief established that judicial bodies evaluating constitutional equal protection clauses similar to Colombia's have held that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation does not serve a legitimate state purpose where economic rights are at issue. The brief also provided an analysis of international law supporting the proposition that Colombia's treaty obligations require it to guarantee the equal distribution of economic benefits to individuals in same-sex conjugal relationships.
The WGM team consisted of Carrie Davenport and Caryn Lederer, supervised by Adam Hemlock.
Esteban Restrepo, a professor at the Los Andes University School of Law and legal counsel to Colombia Diversa, was the team's contact in Colombia. Eight nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations signed on to the brief, including: the New York City Bar Association; Human Rights Watch; the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission; the National Center for Lesbian Rights; the Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic at Yale Law School; Professor Katherine M. Franke of the Center for the Study of Law and Culture at Columbia Law School; Professor Nan D. Hunter of the Center for Health, Science and Public Policy at Brooklyn Law School, and Red Latinoamericana de Académicas/os del Derecho (Red Alas).
The decision overturned a 1990 law establishing domestic partnership benefits but limiting such benefits to opposite-sex couples by defining a "partnership" as existing only between a man and a woman. The Court had previously considered a challenge to the statute in 1996; although it upheld the law at that time, the Court's decision provided that it would be willing to reconsider the issue should social and legal circumstances significantly change. In August 2006, Colombia Diversa, a Colombian umbrella organization working for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights, renewed its facial challenge to the law on equal protection grounds.
Weil Gotshal, on behalf of the New York City Bar Association's Vance Center for International Justice Initiatives, drafted an amicus brief for submission to the Constitutional Court demonstrating that, since 1996, courts and human rights bodies throughout the world have struck down measures that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation in the provision of economic benefits. The brief established that judicial bodies evaluating constitutional equal protection clauses similar to Colombia's have held that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation does not serve a legitimate state purpose where economic rights are at issue. The brief also provided an analysis of international law supporting the proposition that Colombia's treaty obligations require it to guarantee the equal distribution of economic benefits to individuals in same-sex conjugal relationships.
The WGM team consisted of Carrie Davenport and Caryn Lederer, supervised by Adam Hemlock.
Esteban Restrepo, a professor at the Los Andes University School of Law and legal counsel to Colombia Diversa, was the team's contact in Colombia. Eight nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations signed on to the brief, including: the New York City Bar Association; Human Rights Watch; the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission; the National Center for Lesbian Rights; the Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic at Yale Law School; Professor Katherine M. Franke of the Center for the Study of Law and Culture at Columbia Law School; Professor Nan D. Hunter of the Center for Health, Science and Public Policy at Brooklyn Law School, and Red Latinoamericana de Académicas/os del Derecho (Red Alas).
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