Convincing Amnesty International about gay (human) rights: Campaigning for recognition in the human rights movement in the 1970s and 1980s

Abstract This article examines the first attempts of the transnational gay rights movement to frame its demands in the vocabulary of international human rights law (IHRL). Based on archival research and oral history interviews, the article narrates how the International Gay Association (IGA) advocated for recognition within broader IHRL civil society between the late 1970s and early 1990s. The article analyses the almost two-decades-long campaign to convince Amnesty International that gay rights were an IHRL issue. The lobby directed at Amnesty serves to demonstrate a threefold argument: (i) queer transnational activism’s history significantly overlaps with the history of IHRL; (ii) the resort to IHRL by queer activists was both purposeful and accidental. While it ultimately proved decisive in positioning LGBTI+ struggles within mainstream legal debates, it also relied on a contingent set of historical conditions and strategic choices; (iii) queer demands were not ‘naturally’ linked to IHRL, and it took a lengthy process of advocacy for the scope of IHRL to finally open itself to queer claims.