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''Toonen v. Australia'' was a landmark human rights complaint brought before the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) by Tasmanian resident Nicholas Toonen in 1994. The case resulted in the repeal of Australia's last sodomy laws when the Committee held that sexual orientation was included in the antidiscrimination provisions as a protected status under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2007/06/27/australia-policies-defend-marriage-harm-families )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.law.monash.edu.au/castancentre/events/2003/poynderpaper.html )〕 In 1991, Toonen complained to the Human Rights Committee that Tasmanian laws criminalising consensual sex between adult males in private were a violation of his right to privacy under Article 17 of ICCPR; distinguished between people on the basis of sexual activity, sexual orientation and identity in violation of Article 26; and meant that gay men in Tasmania were unequal before the law. As a result of his complaint, Toonen lost his job as General Manager of the Tasmanian AIDS Council, because the Tasmanian Government threatened to withdraw the Council’s funding unless Toonen was fired. On 31 March 1994, the Committee agreed that, because of Tasmania's law, Australia was in breach of the obligations under the treaty. In response, the Commonwealth Government passed a law overriding Tasmania's criminalization of gay sex, Australia's last sodomy laws.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.humanrights.gov.au/education/hr_explained/case_studies.html )〕 The ''Toonen'' decision has subsequently been referenced by the Committee and by other treaty bodies in making rulings.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.asylumlaw.org/docs/sexualminorities/BOTSWANA033108.pdf )〕 ==Sodomy laws in Australia== Australia inherited the United Kingdom's sodomy laws on white colonisation after 1788. These were retained in the criminal codes passed by the various colonial parliaments during the 19th century, and by the state parliaments after Federation. Following the Wolfenden report, the Dunstan Labor government in South Australia introduced a "consenting adults in private" defence in 1972. This defence was initiated as a bill by Murray Hill, father of former Defence Minister Robert Hill, and repealed the state's sodomy law in 1975. The Campaign Against Moral Persecution during the 1970s raised the profile and acceptance of Australia's gay and lesbian communities, and other states and territories repealed their laws between 1976 and 1990. The exceptions were Tasmania and Queensland. Male homosexuality (i.e., sodomy) was decriminalised in South Australia in 1975, and in the Australian Capital Territory in 1976, followed by New South Wales and the Northern Territory in 1984. Western Australia did the same in 1989.〔Law Reform (Decriminalization of Sodomy) Act 1989〕 The states and territories that retained different ages of consent or other vestiges of sodomy laws later began to repeal them: Western Australia did so in 2002, and New South Wales and the Northern Territory did so in 2003. Tasmania decriminalised sodomy in 1997〔(Criminal Code Amendment Act 1997 ), ''AustLII''〕 following the High Court case ''Croome v Tasmania''. Queensland remains the only state or territory in Australia to retain a sodomy law. Section 208 of the Criminal Code Act 1899, "Unlawful Sodomy", makes sodomy a crime for any person not yet 18 or if involving any person not yet 18. The maximum penalty is 14 years imprisonment for attempting or committing sodomy. "Consent" is not accepted as a defense. The age of consent for other sexual activity in Queensland is 16, but a higher minimum age for anal intercourse was introduced by the Goss Labor Government in the November 1990 Bill which otherwise decriminalised sodomy. A uniform age of consent had been recommended by the 1990 Parliamentary Criminal Justice Committee which reported on reforms in laws related to homosexuality. "Recommendation 7" of that Committee's Report was the only majority recommendation which was not adopted. In 1996 the National/Liberal Government changed the terminology in Section 208 from "anal intercourse" to "sodomy" and doubled the applicable penalties. In October 2008 Labor's Attorney-General Kerry Shine raised the penalty for attempting sodomy to be the same as for committing the act.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Age of consent and the "sodomy" law in the state of Queensland )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Toonen v. Australia」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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