Human Rights in Practice: Litigating LGBTIQ Rights-The Kenya Experience

October 25, 2017 • 12:30 PM • Law School 4045

Eric Gitari, Executive Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (NGLHRC) in Kenya, will give a talk on "Litigating LGBTIQ Rights: The Kenya Experience." Gitari will draw from social factors (constitutional dictatorship, poverty, institutional corruption, etc) underlying the remaking of Kenya's Constitution in 2010, from its ongoing implementation, and from his own involvement in three pending test cases concerning sexual orientation and gender identity. The talk will be moderated by Larry Helfer, Harry R. Chadwick, Sr. Professor Law and Co-Director of the Center for International and Comparative Law. This is part of the Human Rights in Practice series, which is co-sponsored by the International Human Rights Clinic, and Center for International and Comparative Law. Additional co-sponsors include the Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity, Duke Human Rights Center at the Franklin Humanities Institute, Duke Human Rights Center at the Kenan Institute for Ethics, FuquaPride, Human Rights Law Society, Outlaw and International Law Society. Lunch will be provided. For more information, or to RSVP, please contact Ali Prince at ali.prince@law.duke.edu.

Biography

Eric Gitari is a ​lawyer and constitutional activist from Kenya. He works at the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission in Kenya and also serves as a Committee officer at the International Bar Association. He is currently litigating three constitutional cases on LGBTIQ equality in Kenya including registration of LGBTIQ NGOs, challenging anal testing to prove homosexual sex and decriminalisation of consensual adult homosexual sex. He loves farming, carpentry and poetry.