When the Sun, the Moon and the Stars Align: Litigating LGBTQIA+ Rights and the Death Penalty in East Africa and the Caribbean

Abstract This article analyses LGBTQIA+ rights and death penalty litigation in the Caribbean and East Africa before and after the establishment of new regional international courts. LGBTQIA+ rights and the death penalty are both difficult and contested issues where global movements and litigation strategies easily clash with local sentiments. For litigation to have an impact in such issue areas, the article finds that three elements must align. First, there is a need for new institutional opportunities such as new judicial venues or laws. Second, there is a need for coordinated legal strategies that can utilize the available legal venues. Third, there is a need for a societal momentum for the cause, or at least the absence of strong political contestation against the cause. In our study, the establishment of new regional courts provided institutional opportunities that could be seized by transnational litigation networks. And as international courts operate at a distance from local politics, they have created a more neutral international legal opportunity structure. In the two regions and across the two issue areas studied, these three elements were most clearly aligned regarding death penalty litigation in the Caribbean and the least aligned regarding LGBTQIA+ litigation in East Africa.