A Critical Comparative Law Analysis on Challenging Anti-Homosexual Legislation in Uganda

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Abstract

Globalisation has enabled Western countries and international organisations to use donor sanctions and economic trade benefits when trying to pressure non-Western countries to change their anti-sodomy laws. This, in turn, has led legal academics such as Katherine Franke and Stewart Chang to argue that this approach of legalising homosexuality and implementing LGBTQ rights evidences Western-imperialism and neo-colonialism. This paper seeks to contribute to the debate between these polar groups and its main focus is to add to the argument of the latter. This is because whereas there is legal commentary critiquing this aspect of globalisation from the perspective of South East Asian countries and Eastern European countries, there is a gap in the literature coming from African perspectives. Thus the paper will investigate anti-homosexual legislation in Uganda in order to argue that effective legal change to this legislation should come from a change in the normative attitudes of the Ugandan people. It seeks to analyse legal pluralism, legal transplants and legal transfers in order to highlight the importance of normative attitudes in law reform. Thus, the paper will assert that legal reform to anti-homosexual legislation that is resultant of external pressures, as opposed to a change in normative attitudes of the Uganda people, will be detrimental to the development of LGBTQ rights in Uganda.


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Keywords: Jurisprudence, Comparative Law

How to Cite: Katto, P. (2018) “A Critical Comparative Law Analysis on Challenging Anti-Homosexual Legislation in Uganda”, Journal of Law and Jurisprudence. 7(1).