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7719 results in Intersentia

Page 193 of 386

  • Vienna Statement

  • Edited by Jens M. Scherpe, Anatol Dutta, Tobias Helms
  • Book:
    The Legal Status of Intersex Persons
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    31 January 2019
    Print publication:
    12 September 2018, pp 19-22

  • Summary

    On the 30th – 31st of March 2017 in Vienna, Austria the first OII Europe community event took place. During the community event 28 Intersex people from 16 Council of Europe member states, some activists and some not, came together to share their experiences, and their varied objectives and strategies for the full implementation of human rights, bodily integrity, self-determination and societal acceptance of intersex people within Europe.

    We affirm that intersex people are real, and we exist in all regions and all countries around the world.

    We reaffirm the Malta Declaration and its demands, formulated at the 3rd International Intersex Forum (2013), as well as the objectives formulated by the 1st European Intersex Meeting in the Riga Statement (2014).

    We also stress the fact, that until this day more than 50 times UN bodies, regional and national human rights bodies have called on governments, policy makers and stakeholders to put an end to human rights violations faced by intersex people – including taking the necessary legislative, administrative and other measures to guarantee respect for the physical integrity and autonomy of intersex persons and to ensure that no one is subjected during infancy or childhood to non-urgent medical or surgical procedures intended to decide the sex of the child.

    Ensuring the right of intersex people of bodily integrity, physical autonomy and self-determination must be a priority in all action taken. Intersex people must be supported to be the drivers of social, political and legislative changes that concern them.

    We therefore call on governments to:

  • • Recognise intersex people as a community that has specific and vital needs and that their human rights need protection.

    • To this aim governments should take decisive action to:

  • • Install legislative protections that ban medical interventions on children with variations of sex characteristics, on social, psychosocial, cultural or cosmetic grounds. A ban on Intersex genital mutilation is necessary as IGM is equatable with female genital mutilation that takes place within hospital settings. Th is may include installing legislative measures that penalise medical professionals that commit or assist in IGM.

  • France

  • from PART IV - NATIONAL LEGAL DEVELOPMENTS
  • Edited by Jens M. Scherpe, Anatol Dutta, Tobias Helms
  • Book:
    The Legal Status of Intersex Persons
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    31 January 2019
    Print publication:
    12 September 2018, pp 305-318

  • Summary

    INTRODUCTION

    Attention to intersex persons in French legislation and regulation dates back to 1970 when an administrative instruction tried to deal with the issues raised by the birth of an intersex person. Since then, not much has happened, as French politicians either did not perceive this as a problem, or, more recently, clearly did not want to deal with the issue. However, recently, some ministerial questions were asked and some official reports were published. In February 2017, both the Senate and Human Rights Defender (ombudsman) issued reports on the situation of intersex persons. Public statements were also made by French officials, the most important by the President of the French Republic on 17 March 2017, in which he called for ‘a ban on surgeries performed on intersex infants which is increasingly regarded as a mutilation’. So far, these developments have not been not followed by legislative change. When the Senate had the opportunity to deal with the problems that intersex persons encounter regarding their sex marker/civil status, it refused to do so. This apparent lack of political interest led an intersex individual to decide, with the help of lawyers (including the author of this chapter), to turn to the courts in order to ask the judges whether or not it was possible for an intersex person to be registered with a neutral sex in France. the reason for this approach was that unlike politicians, courts have to answer the questions they are asked, even the Cour de cassation, which is one of the French Supreme Courts. However their hopes were dashed by that court on 4 May 2017. 12 On that day, the Cour de cassation held, for the first time ever in France, that no special sex marker could be granted to intersex individuals: ‘neutral’ (neutre) was deemed not to be available as a legal sex marker concerning civil status. Very recently, the same court also issued a judgment where it refused an intersex person the right to access to a criminal court on the basis of the limitation period.

  • Preface

  • Edited by Jens M. Scherpe, Anatol Dutta, Tobias Helms
  • Book:
    The Legal Status of Intersex Persons
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    31 January 2019
    Print publication:
    12 September 2018, pp v-vi

  • Summary

    The idea for this book began as a workshop supported by the DAAD Cambridge Research Hub with funds from the German Federal Foreign Office (FFO), the University of Regensburg and Cambridge Family Law.

    The workshop was held at the University of Cambridge/Gonville and Caius College on 21 – 22 July 2016, jointly organised by the editors of this book. The workshop was attended not only by academics from Australia, Germany, the UK, Ireland, New Zealand, Spain and Italy, but also by representatives of the Law Commission of England and Wales, the German Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection (Berlin), the German Institute for Human Rights (Berlin) and the Ministry for Social Dialogue, Consumer Affairs and Civil Liberties (Malta). While the focus was on legal developments and regulation, there also were contributions from theology, medicine and psychology. There was an intense and productive interdisciplinary and interjurisdictional debate over the two days, and much of this is now reflected in this book. After the workshop, and indeed as a result of it, the research project leading to this book was started, and many additional chapters were commissioned in order to present an even broader discussion of the issues.

    However, all major research projects face difficulties of varying kinds, and this one certainly was no exception. Several people who had promised to participate dropped out or failed to deliver. Houses were flooded, illnesses overcome, jobs changed, and children born during the period it took to put this book together. But in the end things came together, and we are pleased with the outcome and the broad range of contributions. We truly hope that this book will contribute to the national and international debates and lead to a focus on the autonomy of the people concerned.

    We also are very grateful to many institutions and persons supporting the research project and publication of the book: the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich for supporting the significant editorial work that needed to be undertaken, and which was handled expertly by Intersentia Publishing; Dafni Lima for her help with the initial editorial work; the Gonville and Caius Conference Office, and particularly Laura Webb, for ensuring that the workshop could take place in such a pleasant and well-organised environment; Ingrid Hobbis of the Cambridge Research Hub for her administrative support; Prof.

  • Intersex in the Brain: What Neuroscience can Tell the Law about Gender Identity

  • from PART I - MEDICINE AND PSYCHOLOGY
    • By Joe Herbert, John van Geest Centre for Brain Repair, Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Cambridge, England, United Kingdom
  • Edited by Jens M. Scherpe, Anatol Dutta, Tobias Helms
  • Book:
    The Legal Status of Intersex Persons
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    31 January 2019
    Print publication:
    12 September 2018, pp 45-64

  • Summary

    SCIENCE AND THE LAW

    Science has had a huge impact on the law. No contemporary crime scene would be complete without a corps of white-coated technicians taking samples or making measurements. But this extra information has no influence on the legal process. The rules of evidence are not altered, the methods of arriving at a verdict are the same, the sentencing policy is untouched. Psychiatrists may be asked to assess a perpetrator's mental state, but the court decides whether this alters its view of responsibility, and the psychological consequences of an action may influence how a court assesses injury. But there are circumstances in which science can influence the composition of the law, or the process by which it is operated. This is one way in which changing cultural or social conditions are – eventually – reflected in the law. The issues surrounding gender identity are a prime example. It is thus essential that lawyers know what science can tell them and, equally, where its limits are: what is not known, or uncertain, as well as what is known.

    the term ‘intersex’ originally referred to those with genitalia that were indeterminate, so complicating or confusing gender assignment at birth. In extreme cases, this meant that the individual's genitalia did not correspond with his/her gender identity. However, a similar disassociation occurs if the person's gender identity does not correspond with his/her genitalia, the latter being the form expected on the basis of chromosomal constitution (XY – male, XX – female). The appearance of an individual's genitals can have profound effects on self-image. So, aberrations in gender identity are also part of ‘intersex’ (i.e. a dissociation between the brain and the genitals). The brain and the genitals are intertwined and the term ‘intersex’ incorporates them both. Gender identity raises many of the same legal questions as disturbances in the development of the genitalia. Current legal debates surrounding gender identity, a relatively new problem for the law, come up against the long-standing and copious body of information on the science of sexuality.

  • Lessons from the Legal Development of the Legal Status of Transsexual and Transgender Persons

  • from PART III - TRANSGENDER, TRANSSEXUALITY AND INTERSEX
    • By Jens M. Scherpe, Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge, England, United Kingdom; University of Hong Kong; Aalborg University, Denmark
  • Edited by Jens M. Scherpe, Anatol Dutta, Tobias Helms
  • Book:
    The Legal Status of Intersex Persons
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    31 January 2019
    Print publication:
    12 September 2018, pp 203-216

  • Summary

    AN ‘I’ IS NOT A ‘T’

    The voice of intersex persons has been unheard for a long time. Also, often this voice was absorbed into the wider chorus of the voices of the LBGT movement. But an ‘I’ is not ‘T’ (and not an ‘L’, ‘G’ or ‘B’ either). Intersex is about experience of body, and trans about experience of gender (and neither are about sexual orientation). It is important to point out right at the outset of this chapter that the legal issues concerning intersex people are different from those of trans individuals and must be dealt with, as a matter of urgency, as a distinct issue and not merely as a part of the debate of other issues, even though they may be or may seem to be related.

    However, recently trans individuals have been become much more visible in society, and legal issues surrounding them have received much greater (and indeed much needed) attention. Significant progress has been made with regard to their rights and recognition in many jurisdictions. The same has yet to happen for intersex persons. While acknowledging the differences between the two groups, this chapter suggests that some lessons can be learned from the paths that were taken to achieve this progress. The chapter by Peter Dunne in this volume will also explore this topic, so this chapter will be based on the findings and recommendations of another research project (which resulted in the publication of the book The Legal Status of Transsexual and Transgender Persons) and how they can be made fruitful for the present context.

    One of the key things the comparison and analysis for the transgender project brought to light was the importance of continuous and consistent activism, and also the importance of certain individuals in bringing about change. But what was also shown were ‘phases’ or stages in the development of the law concerning transsexual and transgender persons. It is very likely that we will see (and indeed are seeing) those mirrored for intersex – although it is to be hoped that the development will be much quicker and more efficient.

The Legal Status of Intersex Persons
  • Edited by Jens M. Scherpe, Anatol Dutta, Tobias Helms
  • Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    31 January 2019
    Print publication:
    12 September 2018
  • The Legal Status of Intersex Persons provides a basis for discussion regarding all legal aspects concerning persons born with sex characteristics that do not belong strictly to male or female categories, or that belong to both at the same time. It contains contributions from medical, psychological and theological perspectives, as well as national legal perspectives from Germany, Australia, India, the Netherlands, Columbia, Sweden, France and the USA. It explores international human rights aspects of intersex legal recognition and also features chapters on private international law and legal history.The book is a timely one. Until very recently, the legal gender of a person – both at birth and later in life – in virtually all jurisdictions had to be recorded as either male or female; the laws simply did not allow any other option, and, in many cases, changing the recorded gender was difficult or impossible. However, there are many cases where this gender binary is unable to capture the reality of a person’s physical presentation and/or perception of self. Consequently, this gender binary is increasingly being challenged and several jurisdictions have begun to reform their gender status laws.For example, in 2013 Germany became the first Western jurisdiction in modern times to introduce legislation allowing a person’s gender to be recorded as ‘indeterminate’ at birth and thus give them a legal gender status other than male or female for all intents and purposes. However, this legislation has proved problematic in many ways and rightly was subject to pertinent criticism. In 2017 the German Constitutional Court then held that these rules were in violation of the German constitution as they only allowed a non-recognition, as opposed to a positive recognition of a gender other than male or female, and mandated law reform. Similarly, the Austria Constitutional Court held in June 2018 that current civil status laws had to be interpreted to allow registration of alternative gender identities. Therefore two European jurisdictions will now have legal gender recognition beyond the binary.This book looks at law reform taking place around the world, with diverse perspectives from relevant fields, to provide the reader with a comprehensive analysis of the legal status of intersex persons and related issues.

  • Sweden

  • from PART IV - NATIONAL LEGAL DEVELOPMENTS
  • Edited by Jens M. Scherpe, Anatol Dutta, Tobias Helms
  • Book:
    The Legal Status of Intersex Persons
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    31 January 2019
    Print publication:
    12 September 2018, pp 255-280

  • Summary

    LEGAL FRAMEWORK AND STATISTICS

    OVERVIEW

    In many respects, Sweden was once considered a pioneering nation in the regulation of juridical gender. In 1631, Sweden became the first country in the world to establish a population registry for its inhabitants – a registry that reflected acknowledgement over time of the existence of persons who could not be classified simply as ‘male’ or ‘female’. In 1972, Sweden also became the first country in the world to enact a national scheme for changing one's registered gender, providing gender-affirming medical care in connection with such changes. The Gender Classification Act at the centre of this scheme, however, also appears to have been the first national law to endorse not only sterilisation of transgender persons, but to provide a mechanism for parents to seek changes of registered gender for children born with intersex conditions, as well as gender-conforming surgery on those children, without the children's consent. The Act emerged from the first known governmental investigation in the world to recognise the class of intersex persons – a class defined as persons who suffer from social conflict with gender registration. Though the experts that led the investigation concluded that the classes of ‘males’ and ‘females’ did not scientifically permit easy categorisation of many individuals, they nevertheless advocated that these classes should be maintained for socio-legal purposes and that all persons should be determined to ‘belong’ to one of these classes under strict legal controls. This legal scheme is expected to undergo significant transformation in 2018, as the government has announced plans to abolish the Gender Classification Act and to authorise simpler administrative changes of registered gender without any medical preconditions, with at least one such change as a matter of right.

    Sweden, however, also shapes and controls juridical gender through a more far-reaching law that medicalises gender identity as binary. the Population Registration Act directs medical personnel to provide data on the gender of an infant as part of the child's juridical registration, despite governmental concessions that no sound definition exists of what constitutes a ‘male’ or ‘female’.

  • United States

  • from PART IV - NATIONAL LEGAL DEVELOPMENTS
    • By Julie A. Greenberg, Emeritus Faculty, Thomas Jefferson School of Law, San Diego, California, United States of America
  • Edited by Jens M. Scherpe, Anatol Dutta, Tobias Helms
  • Book:
    The Legal Status of Intersex Persons
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    31 January 2019
    Print publication:
    12 September 2018, pp 339-356

  • Summary

    INTRODUCTION

    United States citizens typically possess a number of government-issued identity documents that contain a sex indicator. These documents may include a federally issued passport, a state-issued drivers ‘licence and a birth certificate that may be issued by the state, county or city where the person was born. Each government entity issuing these documents operates independently and is governed by diff erent statutes, rules and regulations. Therefore, people who are transgender, intersex, or do not identify as either male (M) or female (F) may possess identity documents with inconsistent gender indicators.

    Although transgender people have challenged legal restrictions on their ability to change an M to an F or an F to an M on their identity documents for decades, people who do not identify as either M or F have only recently challenged the rules limiting the gender indicator to the binary classifications of only M and F. In 2016, a few individuals who identify as neither male nor female sought court orders allowing them to be legally recognised as a sex other than male or female. Many of the challenges have been successful, but court recognition of a non-binary sex marker has not led to abandonment of the binary system by state and federal agencies responsible for issuing and amending identity documents.

    The current patchwork quilt US system, under which intersex people and people who do not identify within the binary sex classifications may have an M on one official document, an F on another, and an X/I on a third document, will likely remain intact until a court determines that denying someone the right to identify as something other than M or F is unconstitutional.

    This chapter discusses the legal challenges that people who identify as neither male nor female have brought and examines the legal limitations on the ability to use a court order affirming someone's sex as non-binary to obtain amended identity documents. It then discusses the constitutional ramifications of denying someone the ability to identify as neither male nor female and concludes that government agencies that deny people the ability to self-identify as a sex other than male or female likely violate the United States Constitution's equal protection and substantive due process guarantees.

  • Evidence-Based Reviews of Medical Interventions Relative to the Gender Status of Children with Intersex Conditions and Differences of Sex Development

  • from PART I - MEDICINE AND PSYCHOLOGY
    • By Jameson Garland, Faculty of Law, Uppsala University, Sweden, Milton Diamond, John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawai'i, United States of America
  • Edited by Jens M. Scherpe, Anatol Dutta, Tobias Helms
  • Book:
    The Legal Status of Intersex Persons
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    31 January 2019
    Print publication:
    12 September 2018, pp 81-102

  • Summary

    INTRODUCTION

    Twenty years ago, standard clinical practice regarding the treatment of infants with intersex conditions and differences of sex development reached a critical turning point, particularly on the question of what gender to assign the affected children and whether their gender assignments should be reinforced with surgical interventions. Prior to this period, prominent clinicians tended to minimise as anomalous the statements of aggrieved adults whose bodies had been surgically modified in childhood and who suffered physical pain, genital dysfunction, loss of fertility, and sexual sensitivity, as well as those who considered the interventions a violation of their identity and personal integrity. By 1997, however, case studies had been published confirming rejections of gender assignments by older minors and adults who had been subjected to medical gender-conforming procedures in childhood. These disclosures led to the first reform guidelines proposing that while a social gender assignment for infants could be expected to continue, clinical practice should be more open to recognition of diverse gender identities and resistant to surgical interventions designed to reinforce an assigned gender. On the whole, however, clinical practitioners did not appear to embrace these guidelines. Rather, while the calls for practice changes were expected to ‘accelerate the re-examination of the clinical care of the intersex patient’, they instead marked the start of a period of a ‘crisis in clinical management’, one in which many clinicians found it difficult to change their practices without scientific evidence conclusively proving that all gender-conforming medical interventions are too risk-laden or unnecessary to support gender assignment on infants and young children.

    Concerned about the quality of evidence supporting clinical practice, a group of prominent expert-clinicians organised several invitational gatherings of their colleagues to review gender-assignment practices and the medical interventions used to reinforce them. The first of these gatherings took place in Chicago in 2005 and was dubbed the Chicago Consensus, which led to the publication of a Consensus Statement the following year. This Consensus Statement recommended caution for a limited number of interventions but acknowledged that the lack of long-term outcome data was a ‘major shortfall’ of clinical practice, including gender assignment in infancy.

  • Germany (The 2013 German Law)

  • from PART IV - NATIONAL LEGAL DEVELOPMENTS
    • By Tobias Helms, Faculty of Law, Philipps University Marburg, Germany
  • Edited by Jens M. Scherpe, Anatol Dutta, Tobias Helms
  • Book:
    The Legal Status of Intersex Persons
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    31 January 2019
    Print publication:
    12 September 2018, pp 369-382

  • Summary

    This chapter discusses the 2013 German civil status law regarding intersex. After a quick look back on the law before the reform in 2013, the first focus will be on the interpretation of the 2013 law and its consequences for German family law as a whole. Then the ground-breaking decision of the Federal Constitutional Court of 10 October 2017 will be looked at. In this decision, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled that the reform of 2013 (which explicitly allowed leaving the gender entry blank when an intersex child is born) had not gone far enough and that German civil status law must allow a third ‘positive’ gender option. Finally, this chapter will ask whether we can do without gender as a legal category completely.

    THE BINARY SOCIAL (GENDER) ORDER

    The categorisation of human beings as part of either the female or the male sex is seen as natural and self-evident in everyday life. When relatives or friends inform us that they are expecting off spring, one of the first questions is always: ‘A boy or a girl?’ When we meet someone for the first time we automatically assign that person to one of the gender categories, even before learning their name or having spoken to them. Should we not immediately succeed with this gender categorisation, we become irritated to the extent that we are literally rendered speechless. After all, the German language has no personal form of address that does not use the words ‘Frau’ or ‘Herr’. We essentially cannot imagine life without gender categorisation.

    The binary gender system is deeply rooted in the history of civilisation and of mankind. As Verse 27 of the Book of Genesis famously states: ‘God created man in His own image, … male and female He created them.’ The attraction between the sexes is the basis for the propagation of the human species. It shapes our mating conduct and social behaviour and – to a certain extent – continues to determine the power structures of human society. Nonetheless, throughout history there has always been a certain level of awareness of the fact that there are humans that do not fall into the usual sex categories.

  • Darlington Statement

  • Edited by Jens M. Scherpe, Anatol Dutta, Tobias Helms
  • Book:
    The Legal Status of Intersex Persons
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    31 January 2019
    Print publication:
    12 September 2018, pp 11-18

  • Summary

    Joint statement by Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand intersex community organisations and independent advocates, including the Androgen Insensitivity Support Syndrome Support Group Australia (AISSGA), Intersex Trust Aotearoa New Zealand (ITANZ), Organisation Intersex International Australia (OIIAU), Eve Black, Kylie Bond (AISSGA), Tony Briff a (OIIAU/AISSGA), Morgan Carpenter (OIIAU/Intersex Day Project 4), Candice Cody (OIIAU), Alex David (OIIAU), Betsy Driver (Bodies Like Ours), Carolyn Hannaford (AISSGA), Eileen Harlow, Bonnie Hart (AISSGA), Phoebe Hart (AISSGA), Delia Leckey (ITANZ), Steph Lum (OIIAU), Mani Bruce Mitchell (ITANZ), Elise Nyhuis (AISSGA), Bronwyn O ‘Callaghan, Sandra Perrin (AISSGA), Cody Smith (Tranz Australia), Trace Williams (AISSGA), Imogen Yang (Bladder Exstrophy Epispadias Cloacal Exstrophy Hypospadias Australian Community – BEECHAC 5), Georgie Yovanovic.

    Preamble

  • A. Intersex people are born with physical or biological sex characteristics (such as sexual anatomy, reproductive organs, hormonal patterns and/or chromosomal patterns) that are more diverse than stereotypical definitions for male or female bodies. For some people these traits are apparent prenatally or at birth, while for others they emerge later in life, often at puberty (see UN definition 6). We recognise our diverse histories and use the word intersex inclusively, and acknowledging our right to self-determination.

  • B. We observe that, despite the best efforts of intersex human rights defenders, discrimination, stigmatisation and human rights violations, including harmful practices in medical settings, continue to occur in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand.

  • C. We observe the 2013 Senate Community Affairs References Committee report, Involuntary or coerced sterilisation of intersex people in Australia, and the 2016 Family Court of Australia case, Re Carla (Medical procedure). We observe the Concluding observations on the fifth periodic report of New Zealand by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in 2016. 9

  • D. We recognise the international obligations of our countries, having signed the Convention against Torture, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

  • The ‘Normalisation’ of Intersex Bodies and ‘Othering’ of Intersex Identities

  • from PART VI - INTERSEX AND HUMAN RIGHTS
    • By Morgan Carpenter, Sydney Health Ethics, University of Sydney, Australia; Co-executive Director of Intersex Human Rights Australia (IHRA); GATE, New York, USA
  • Edited by Jens M. Scherpe, Anatol Dutta, Tobias Helms
  • Book:
    The Legal Status of Intersex Persons
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    31 January 2019
    Print publication:
    12 September 2018, pp 445-514

  • Summary

    INTRODUCTION

    In 2015, a UN factsheet named Australia and Malta as countries that have made demonstrable progress in recognising the human rights of intersex people. Australia had held the first Parliamentary inquiry on involuntary or coerced medical interventions, and also added an attribute of ‘intersex status’ to federal anti-discrimination law. Australia also implemented a federal third-sex classification, and laid claim in 2017 to'some of the most advanced laws in the world, including on intersex status’. Yet the report of the Parliamentary inquiry has not been implemented and so-called medical ‘normalisation’ of intersex bodies continues with the imprimatur of the Family Court of Australia. In contrast, Malta had enacted legal protections for the bodily autonomy of infants and children.

    The coexistence in Australia of both legal inclusion and surgical ‘normalisation’ indicates a disjunction between what is said and what is done; between a rhetoric of inclusion and the reality of human rights violations. The situation also indicates a lack of connection between policies and practices designed to protect people with non-normative identities, and policies and practices affecting the treatment of people born with non-normative bodies. 6

    A series of epistemic claims underpin these disjunctions. Policies and practices affecting people born with non-normative bodies are grounded in a medical discourse about abnormality and, in the context of non-normative sex characteristics, a medical discourse of ‘disorders of sex development’. In response to challenges to medical jurisdiction, clinicians have made claims about consensus regarding treatment; attempted to marginalise and discredit critics; and made claims about change or improvements to clinical practices.

    Policies and practices affecting people with non-normative identities are reflected in legal and social discourse associated with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) populations. This discourse directly and indirectly frames intersex people as being members of a third sex. This is associated with claims about solutions for the human rights concerns regarding forced medical interventions; claims of deception that promote medical authority over intersex bodies; and claims of sex diversity that are deployed to justify the demands of other populations.

  • Introduction

  • Anthi Beka
  • Book:
    The Active Role of Courts in Consumer Litigation
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    31 January 2019
    Print publication:
    10 September 2018, pp 1-6

  • Summary

    [T]he system of protection laid down by the Directive [93/13] is based on the notion that the imbalance between the consumer and the seller or supplier may only be corrected by positive action unconnected with the actual parties to the contract. Joined Cases C-240/98 – C-244/98, Océano Grupo, EU:C:2000:346, para. 27

    The court must consider whether the term is fair even if none of the parties to the proceedings has raised that issue or indicated that it intends to raise it Section 71 (2) Consumer Rights Act 2015

    Este cap í tulo recoge tambi é n la modificaci ó n del procedimiento ejecutivo a efectos de que, de oficio o a instancie de parte, el órgano judicial competente pueda apreciar la existencia de cl á usulas abusivas en eltítulo ejecutivoy, como consecuencia, decretar la improcedencia de la ejecucióno, en su caso, su continuaci ón sin aplicación de aquéllas consideradas abusivas

    Preamble to the Spanish Law 1/2013 laying down measures for the strengthening of the protection of mortgagors, the restructuring of debt and social rent of 14 May 2013 … Seule la reconnaissance du pouvoir dont dispose le juge de soulever d'office l'application d'une disposition protectrice du consommateur permettait deré tablir uné quilibre dans le cadre d'un process entre la partie faible et la partie dominante

    French Senate, Report no 111 (2007–2008), of December 5, 2007 by Senator M. G é rard Cornu

    If the sources of the passages above were omitted, one might have thought, but for the language, that it is the same court or the same legislator that recognizes the same issue: the consumer is in weak position not only in the contractual relationship but also as a party in the procedure, and this has to be compensated for by the courts. If Union law came to address this issue, that is thanks to the judiciary of the Union, which comprises the Court of Justice (hereinafter“ the Court ”) and the national courts.

  • Final Conclusions: Changing the Narrative and Moving Forward

  • Anthi Beka
  • Book:
    The Active Role of Courts in Consumer Litigation
    Published by:
    Intersentia
    Published online:
    31 January 2019
    Print publication:
    10 September 2018, pp 353-362

  • Summary

    For me, it is a real pleasure to present Dr. Anthi Beka's monograph devoted to The Active Role of Courts in Consumer Litigation – Applying EU Law of the National Courts ‘ Own Motion, as it was a pleasure for me to supervize her doctoral research during her four years at the University of Luxembourg. The book, published today, is a revised version of her PhD thesis which revealed her outstanding research qualities. It was presented to, and discussed, by a prestigious European committee composed of: Prof. Dr. Vassilios Skouris, then-President of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU); Prof. Dr. Norbert Reich, University of Bremen, who is considered the father of German consumer law; Prof. Dr. Eleftheria Neframi, University of Luxembourg, a renowned expert on EU law; Prof. Dr. Christian Twigg-Flesner, University of Warwick, a consultant on the UK's Consumer Rights Act; and Dr. José Mar í a Fern á ndez Seijo, Judge at the Commercial Court of Appeal, Barcelona, who made the very first CJEU reference for preliminary ruling on the matter of the role of the courts in consumer proceedings, followed by other such important requests in connection with Spanish consumer law. Since then, Dr. Anthi Beka has worked as a legal administrator in the chambers of a Member of the Court of Justice. Dr. Beka did not, however, abandon the world of legal research as confirmed by her most recent publications.”

    Her monograph on the“ Active Role of Courts in Consumer Litigation” is more evidence of the excellence of her scientific production. It transforms a young researcher's work, already quite remarkable by reason of its scientific quality, into a mature work that describes, analyzes and provides a critical appraisal of the complexity of the relationship which exists between national legal orders and the EU legal framework. Beyond the extremely valuable contribution of Dr. Beka's study to the doctrine of active courts in consumer litigation, her book brings to light the very essence of the relationship which exists between judges – whether they operate at a national level or at a regional level – and citizens. It is more than a legal study; it is a social study. It is the narrative of human and judicial bondage.

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