Beyond the text: ‘Global’ SOGI rights movement versus ‘International’ human rights law

Under international human rights law, multilateral state-centric treaties, agreed upon and acceded to by states that are represented by their governments, are greatly relied on as the most significant instruments in dealing with, paradoxically, the relationship between governments and individuals. Regarding treaty interpretation, international lawyers are traditionally restricted by the rules provided in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. This article however argues for a cosmopolitan perspective to replace international legal positivism to qualify the primary purpose of contemporary human rights norms. The former views the world as a global community accommodating inter-cultural diversities rather than an anarchic non-community of inter-national sovereignties. Such a contention sustains especially when it comes to a social transformation that occurs transnationally, from the bottom up, such as the global SOGI rights and justice social movement. Through a case study of the development of ‘equality and non-discrimination clause’ of the International Bill of Human Rights, I argue for the potential of such constructivism to reframe the rights of being human, out of its specialties in resisting state power, as adaptable to the changing social realities.