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Preliminaries, including abbreviations and contributors' bios

1 Human rights, sexual orientation and gender identity in the Commonwealth: from history and law to developing activism and transnational dialogues

Corinne Lennox and Matthew Waites

2 The sodomy offence: England’s least lovely criminal law export?

The Hon. Michael Kirby AC CMG

3 This alien legacy: the origins of ‘sodomy’ laws in British colonialism

Human Rights Watch

4 LGBT rights in Commonwealth forums: politics, pitfalls and progress?

Frederick Cowell

5 United Kingdom: confronting criminal histories and theorising decriminalisation as citizenship and governmentality

Matthew Waites

6 Wolfenden in Canada: within and beyond official discourse in law reform struggles

Gary Kinsman

7 Australia: nine jurisdictions, one long struggle

Graham Willett

8 A few respectable steps behind the world? Gay and lesbian rights in contemporary Singapore

Simon Obendorf

9 The Malaysian dilemma: negotiating sexual diversity in a Muslim-majority Commonwealth state

Shanon Shah

10 Decriminalisation of consensual same-sex sexual acts in the South Asian Commonwealth: struggles in contexts

Sumit Baudh

11 Decriminalising homosexuality in Africa: lessons from the South African experience

Gustavo Gomes da Costa Santos

12 The development of sexual rights and the LGBT movement in Botswana

Monica Tabengwa with Nancy Nicol

13 The LGBT situation in Malawi: an activist perspective

Undule Mwakasungula

14 The incremental approach: Uganda’s struggle for the decriminalisation of homosexuality

Adrian Jjuuko

15 Religious institutions and actors and religious attitudes to homosexual rights: South Africa and Uganda

Kevin Ward

16 ‘Buggery’ and the Commonwealth Caribbean: a comparative examination of the Bahamas, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago

Joseph Gaskins Jr.

17 Beyond cross-cultural sensitivities: international human rights advocacy and sexuality in Jamaica

Conway Blake and Philip Dayle

18 The use of equality and anti-discrimination law in advancing LGBT rights

Dimitrina Petrova

19 Conclusion

Comparative analysis of decriminalisation and change across the Commonwealth: understanding contexts and discerning strategies

Corinne Lennox and Matthew Waites

Index