Subject: [euroletter] PRESS RELEASE FROM ILGA-Europe
From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 22:51:51 +0200 (METDST)

PRESS RELEASE

EUROPEAN UNION LAUNCHES ITS HUMAN RIGHTS AGENDA FOR THE YEAR 2000
Comite des Sages recommends that sexual orientation discrimination be more
systematically addressed through a European Commission action plan and the
development of a draft directive on equal treatment.

At a conference in Vienna 9-10 October 1998, the human rights agenda for the
EU for the year 2000 was launched and debated by high-level experts and
officials, including from the European Commission, the European Parliament and
the Council of Europe. This agenda is the result of the European
Commission-sponsored project "A human rights agenda for the European Union for
the Year 2000" carried out by an expert team led by Professor Philip Alston,
head of the Department of Law at the European University Institute in
Florence. This project is marking the 50th anniversary of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights to be celebrated in December 1998 and is intended
to formulate a comprehensive future human rights policy for the EU. Based on
the extensive Final Project Report prepared by this expert team, a Comite des
Sages has elaborated the human rights agenda for the EU for the year 2000. The
Comite des Sages consisted of Antonio Cassesse, President of the International
Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Catherine Lalumière, member of
the European Parliament and former Secretary-General of the Council of Europe,
Peter Leuprecht, former Deputy Secretary-General of the Council of Europe, and
Mary Robinson, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Both the final project report and the agenda have now been published and both
refer to human rights of lesbians and gays. The conclusion and recommendation
of the expert team that "Discrimination based on sexual orientation continues
to be widespread and should be more systematically addressed through a
Commission action plan and the development of a draft directive on equal
treatment" (paragraph 208 of the Final Project Report) was included in full
text in the agenda of the Comite des Sages (paragraph 12).

"This reference is, after Article 13 TEC as amended by the Treaty of
Amsterdam, another clear and strong commitment and mandate for the European
Union to combat sexual orientation discrimination and to treat it in the same
line as other human rights violations", states ILGA-Europe co-chair Kurt
Krickler who attended the two day-conference in Vienna. "And it is another
lobbying success of ILGA-Europe because ILGA-Europe had submitted a
contribution on
sexual orientation discrimination to the expert team which was prepared by
Mark Bell, a PhD researcher at the European University Institute in Florence,
and supplemented by the recommendations of ILGA-Europe's report 'Equality for
lesbians and gays men - A relevant issue in the civil and social dialogue'
published last June."

The agenda and the final project report, two key documents on human rights in
the European Union indispensable for all working and lobbying in this field,
have been posted on the internet at www.iue.it/AEL/welcome.html. French and
German translations of these documents are supposed to also be available at
this website by 16 October.

ILGA-Europe
E-mail: [email-masked] 
http://www.steff.suite.dk/ilgaeur.htm
Fax: +45 4049 5297
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