Introduction

Civil society significantly invested in the struggle to establish the new mandate of the Independent Expert on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI), and the investment bore fruit with the appointment of Vitit Muntarbhorn as the first Independent Expert on SOGI. Due to Vitit Muntarbhorn being unable to continue his tenure for reasons of ill-health, this position is now occupied by the second Independent Expert on SOGI, Víctor Madrigal Borlioz. Now that Víctor Madrigal has begun his tenure, it’s an appropriate time to ask what the mandate has achieved and what can be expected of the mandate going forward?

In the discharge of the mandate, the Independent Expert:

transmits urgent appeals and letters of allegation to States with regard to cases of violence and discrimination against persons on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
undertakes fact-finding country visits.
submits annual reports to the Human Rights Council, and General Assembly, on the activities, trends and methods of work.[1]

Communications and Country Visits

With respect to urgent appeals and letters of allegation, as of February 2018, there have been only four such communications, in total, sent by the Independent Expert concerning rights violations on grounds of SOGI. These were to Peru, Tunisia, Russian Federation and El Salvador. Of the four countries, only El Salvador has responded to the communication.[2] In comparison, just for the year 2017, the Mandate Holder on Arbitrary Detention sent 87 such communications to various states.[3] The reason for the comparative underuse of this aspect of the SOGI mandate could be because:

the mandate holder has not received information which fits the format prescribed to be considered a letter of allegation of urgent appeal;
the mandate holder in spite of receiving many communications, has not sent many urgent appeals or letters of allegations to the concerned government;
the mandate holder has felt that strategically it made more sense for the communication to go from another mandate holder with whom the subject matter overlaps.