Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2016
Abstract
Examining the historical achievements and failures of the South African Constitution’s sexual orientation protections highlights larger lessons from the last twenty years of constitutionalism in South Africa. In this Article, I use the drafting history, Constitutional Court adjudication, and the practical insufficiencies of the Constitution’s inclusion of sexual orientation-based protections to highlight three categories of insights. These lessons include an encouraging insight regarding the inclusion of novel and progressive elements when drafting modern constitutions; some modest claims about the capacity of courts to combat inequality based on sexual orientation despite the limitations of purely legal victories; and a hopeful affirmation of the value of even unrealized constitutional aspirations for the fields of comparative constitutionalism and gay and lesbian equality.
Recommended Citation
49 Cornell Int'l. L.J. 565 (2016).