Britain faces UN blacklist for blocking trans laws

Equalities watchdog may lose place at human rights meetings after Stonewall lobbying

BRITAIN could be blacklisted at the UN’S human rights body over its defence of biological sex, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

The UK’S Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is facing a “special review” of its international accreditation after lobbying by trans rights groups led by Stonewall, the controversial LGBT charity.

The review by the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (Ganhri) could result in the EHRC being stripped of its “A status”, meaning it would no longer have a place at the UN Human Rights Council and other UN bodies. Ganhri is an independent body whose accreditation grants access to the UN.

It is the latest row to involve the UK and the UN after the international body’s commission for refugees said the Government’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda did not comply with its obligations under international law.

The Ganhri inquiry was launched after the EHRC gave advice to ministers which suggested that changing the law to define sex as “biological sex” would bring clarity to contentious issues such as the provision of single-sex spaces, Baroness Falkner, the watchdog’s chairman, has revealed.

Writing for The Telegraph, Lady Falkner said that she was “disappointed” that the EHRC was being investigated following “targeted action by a group of campaign organisations”.

Despite the review, she said that the organisation would continue to consider the balance of rights and would not allow its decisions to be swayed by “those that shout the loudest”.

Countries that have previously been stripped of their A status by Ganhri include Azerbaijan, Mauritania, Nicaragua, Paraguay and Afghanistan. The Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation held A status until it was suspended in March pending the results of a special investigation, which was due to take place last month.

Organisations with B status can observe international meetings but do not participate and do not have the right to submit documentation to the UN’S Human Rights Council.

Last year, in the face of complaints by Stonewall and other trans rights groups including Mermaids and the Good Law Project, the EHRC had its A accreditation confirmed as part of a routine review.

However, in April this year, Lady Falkner provided advice to Kemi Badenoch, who was women and equalities minister at the time, stating that changing the word “sex” to “biological sex” in the equalities law would bring clarity on contentious issues such as sport categories and women-only shortlists.

As a result of the letter, the EHRC “experienced targeted action by [campaigners who] used the UN accreditation process as a means to undermine our statutory role – which involves a legal duty to advise on the effectiveness of equality laws”, Lady Falkner said.

She added: “Our advice on this complex and divisive issue made clear that the Government should lean towards a biological definition of sex as the fairest way of protecting everyone’s rights, but that it should carefully identify and consider the potential implications of any such change. We were saddened to see that Stonewall and other campaigners chose to ‘go low’ with unsubstantiated claims.”

Stonewall and others first lodged a complaint about the EHRC to Ganhri in February last year after Lady Falkner wrote to the governments in Holyrood and Westminster calling for them to pause before enacting laws governing legal gender recognition and conversion therapy. The lobbying groups’ request for a special review was rejected, but they were invited to contribute to a regular five-year review which took place later in the year.

That review re-accredited the EHRC as an A-status organisation. However, in May this year Stonewall led a complaint to Ganhri saying that the EHRC’S suggested protections for biological sex were “actively harming trans people”.

Ganhri has since informed the EHRC it will be subject to a special review.

Lady Falkner said that she would be happy to discuss her body’s advice “line by line” with the trans lobby groups and that it “absolutely refuted” the latest allegations against it, which include that it was “in cahoots” with the Government “in allegedly seeking to erode the rights of trans people”.

Ganhri did not respond to a request for comment but has previously said ongoing reviews are confidential.

Nobody who accepts a prominent role in public office expects plain sailing. I have always relished public service and accept its ups and downs, but when the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is criticised, it is never comfortable for me as its chairwoman.

I was grateful to see the investigation into internal complaints made against me close last month. I can reassure our stakeholders, and the British public we serve, that we are committed to learning lessons from those events and making all necessary improvements.

In the meantime, the EHRC has never ceased its work to protect and promote equality and human rights.

Unfortunately, our road to reset and renewal now faces another obstacle. This comes as a challenge, originating from UK campaign groups, to our UN accreditation as an “A” status national human rights organisation.

Accreditation is reviewed regularly by the relevant body on behalf of the UN, to ensure that the highest standards of human rights protections are upheld. The EHRC went through a successful reaccreditation only last year, which confirmed our “A” status for the next five years.

The accreditation process for a National Human Rights Institution is different from an assessment of the country’s own human rights legal framework and record. So, for instance, Belgium’s and Sweden’s human rights bodies are rated “B”, owing to constraints in their constitutional set-up.

Our own reaccreditation last year showed that both our technical and procedural set-up, and our track record of protecting human rights, meet the highest standards. So we are concerned that we are now under review again.

But after our advice to government on the functioning of the Equality Act this April, we experienced targeted action by a group of campaign organisations, who again used the UN accreditation process as a means to undermine our statutory role – which involves a legal duty to advise on the effectiveness of equality laws. These allegations about us followed a letter we sent in April to the minister for women and equalities, who asked for our advice on the definition of the protected characteristic of “sex” in the Equality Act.

Our advice on this complex and divisive issue made clear that government should lean towards a biological definition of sex as the fairest way of protecting everyone’s rights, but that it should carefully identify and consider the potential implications of any such change.

We were saddened to see that Stonewall and other campaigners chose to “go low” with unsubstantiated claims about matters which have little to do with the daily lives of the people or groups who we are there to protect, instead of engaging with us to discuss our proposals to improve the balance of rights and protections.

If they disagree with our advice to government, we stand ready to explain our analysis line by line, which I did on July 12 in a public session with the Women and Equalities Committee.

So I am disappointed that we now face a special review. We have already written to the Sub-committee on Accreditation (SCA) to highlight inaccuracies in the submissions made against us, and to strongly reject claims that we are not compliant with the Paris Principles.

We take our duty to champion the rights of everyone, including trans people, incredibly seriously. This has included urging the UK Government to protect individuals with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment from harmful conversion practices and calling on governments across Britain to address unacceptably long waiting times for gender identity and advice services. We engage with different stakeholders on these issues to explain our decision-making and encourage open dialogue, in the spirit of more open, respectful conversations.

And that is exactly where we must strike the right balance for the benefit of everyone. This includes considering, carefully and impartially and on the basis of all the evidence, how the rights of one person, or group, might be affected by the rights of another.

This can put us in a difficult position, but it is an unavoidable part of our role in regulating such complex and evolving areas of law.

As part of the case made against us to the SCA, we were accused of being “in cahoots” with the UK Government in allegedly seeking to erode the rights of trans people. We absolutely refute this assertion. Our positions on sex and gender have received support from parliamentarians across the party-political divides. We take great pride in our independence from government and continue to demonstrate our impartiality through our willingness to robustly challenge them.

We were unequivocal in raising the potential for our existing human rights protections to be weakened by the Illegal Migration Act that passed over the summer, and we will actively monitor the new programme set out in the recent King’s Speech.

So we are confident that we can respond robustly to any questions the SCA may have for us in spring next year, when we will be invited to attend an interview to discuss the special review of our A-status. In the meantime, we will continue to get on with the job.

At the EHRC, we keep our eyes on our public duty first, which is to protect and promote the rights of everyone – not merely those that shout the loudest.