The Promotion of LGBT Rights as International Human Rights Norms: Explaining Brazil’s Diplomatic Leadership

Abstract

One of the greatest contemporary challenges in human rights norm making is defining the protection against discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression as an international standard. In an unusually polarized structure, the approval of a few resolutions on the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transvestite, transsexual, and transgender persons has engendered intense negotiation within international organizations, which has been largely promoted by Brazil. By expanding the analytical parameters of the literature on norm entrepreneurship to the study of foreign policy, the article analyzes Brazil's international leadership on LGBT rights, explaining the origins, motivations, and results of the country's proactive stance on the issue.