To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the MA in Understanding and Securing Human Rights offered at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, we are pleased to publish a commemorative edited volume on human rights themes authored by distinguished alumni and faculty.   The chapters reflect on cutting-edge challenges in the field of human rights. Topics include refugee protection, women’s human rights, business and human rights, the role of national and international legal mechanisms and emerging themes such as tax justice, rights in the digital age, theories of change, and poetry. It is a credit to the MA programme that the chapters are rich with critical analysis, diverse expertise and innovative approaches.This book will be essential reading for students of human rights and practitioners who can benefit from the insights into theory and practice offered here.

Human rights in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity are at last reaching the heart of global debates. Yet 78 states worldwide continue to criminalise same-sex sexual behaviour, and due to the legal legacies of the British Empire, 42 of these – more than half – are in the Commonwealth of Nations. In recent years many states have seen the emergence of new sexual nationalisms, leading to increased enforcement of colonial sodomy laws against men, new criminalisations of sex between women and discrimination against transgender people.   Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in The Commonwealth: Struggles for Decriminalisation and Change challenges these developments as the first book to focus on experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) and all non-heterosexual people in the Commonwealth. The volume offers the most internationally extensive analysis to date of the global struggle for decriminalisation of same-sex sexual behaviour and relationships.   The book includes: The first quantitative analysis of legal change related to sexual orientation and gender identity across all the Commonwealth’s 54 Member States, and an overview of existing transnational politics and activism. 13 peer-reviewed chapters by academics and activists presenting analyses of struggles for decriminalisation and change in 16 national contexts covering all regions of the Commonwealth: United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, South Africa, Botswana, Malawi, Uganda, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Bahamas.   A unique comparative analysis across the Commonwealth, based on the 16 national analyses, focusing on learning lessons from states in the global South where decriminalisation of same-sex sexual behaviour has been achieved, including the Bahamas, South Africa and India. Some recent transnational activism has sought to use the Commonwealth as a medium to achieve decriminalisation. This volume distinctively opens up questions of how such developments should be interpreted in the contexts of colonialism and post-colonialism, and critical perspectives on cultural racism, Southern theory and homonationalism. It thus offers analytical frameworks for developing struggles and strategies for decriminalisation and human rights in the context of a multi-dimensional understanding of inequalities and power.     About the editors: Dr Corinne Lennox is Lecturer in Human Rights at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London, United Kingdom.   Dr Matthew Waites is Senior Lecturer in Sociology in the School of Social and Political Sciences at University of Glasgow, United Kingdom.