Yogyakarta Principles (日惹原则)

The Yogyakarta Principles were adopted in 2006 at a meeting of international human rights experts in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and formally launched the following year, under the full title “The Yogyakarta Principles on the Application of International Human Rights Law in Relation to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity.” Their approach is deliberately modest: not to invent new rights, but to spell out, principle by principle, how existing international human rights law — the rights to life, privacy, freedom from discrimination — applies equally to people of every sexual orientation and gender identity. The original document contains 29 principles; the 2017 supplement, YP+10, added 9 more (Principles 30–38), bringing gender expression and sex characteristics into the framework — the “+10” in the name marks the tenth anniversary, not the number of new principles.

The Principles are not a treaty and bind no state. But their careful legal reasoning has made them one of the most frequently cited international documents on SOGI issues — invoked in court judgments, by human rights bodies, and throughout scholarship.

Register note: academic, legal, and advocacy vocabulary. When citing, keep “what the Principles argue” distinct from “what a given state is already obligated to do” — the former is expert interpretation of international human rights law; the latter depends on which treaties that state has ratified.

Common misreading: calling them “a UN document” or “international law.” They were drafted by independent experts, not adopted by any UN body; the standard citation is the Yogyakarta Principles (2006) and YP+10 (2017). See also SOGIE and anti-discrimination law.