Constitutional provisions on equality and non-discrimination apply to governments in their various functions (as employers, providers of services, and organisers of benefits). Non-discrimination pro­visions apply to the private sector only if the constitution or legislation extends the obligation to individuals and privately owned enterprises. As we shall see, few countries in the region extend non-discrimination […]

Extensive censorship expressly prohibiting information and images relating to homosexuality has been in place in mainland China (UNDP 2010: 61). Chinese gay movies, such as Farewell My Concubine, East Palace West Palace and Lanyu, are not shown in theatres; and the US film Brokeback Mountain was not screened, although pirated copies were easy to obtain. […]

Laws against prostitution exist throughout the region. Some compulsory testing for sexually transmitted infections has been reported in China and Vietnam, although sex work is officially prohibited (UNAIDS 2012: 2). China, which mounted a national campaign against prostitution in 2010 as part of a larger crackdown on crime, has an administrative law that allows the […]

The lack of an explicit ‘sodomy’ law did not mean tolerance for homosexuals in post-revolutionary China. Police actions against gay men cruising for sex in public places or against gay or transgender street prostitution have often been justified by laws on public nuisance, loitering, or vagrancy. As Sang points out, ‘since the economic reform and […]

Sodomy laws Criminal prohibitions of homosexual acts have been, over time, the most dramatic examples of laws that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. For a few centuries, criminal laws, religious in origin, prohibited male-male sexual acts in all parts of Christian Europe. From the end of the eighteenth century, France — and the […]

Human rights, as we now understand them, are the product of the years since the Second World War. While human rights are now widely accepted by governments, at least rhetorically, it is important to remember that their development has been very slow, and often episodic. Implementation is uneven in East Asia. The major institutional bodies […]

Douglas Sanders Introduction The legal systems in the East Asian region discussed below (People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam) are all hybrids. They have local elements, and, in addition, colonial era borrowings from European or Russian models. As well, they now have laws or constitutional provisions […]

Given the significance of marriage and family in North Korean society, it is easy to see why sexuality is so austere — at least in official discourse. Not only are other concerns, such as national security and food insecurity, major preoccupations for a politically isolated country with an ailing economy, but the normative value placed […]

In addition to the legislation pertaining to marriage, divorce, and gender equality, the Labour Law, promulgated on 24 June 1946, was also premised on the importance of protecting the integrity of the family. This law includes special stipulations for the protection of children and mothers, prohibiting them from ‘toilsome or harmful labour’, in addition to […]

Throughout the Choshn Dynasty (1392—1910), Confucian ideology had defined marriage as a relationship forged between two families (see Choi in this volume). In other words, a com­mitment of marriage signified an alliance between two families whether as a strategy to expand influence in the region or to smooth relations between rival factions. Individuals were defined […]