international I think it is our responsibility not to lose sight of the universal, indivisible, interdependent and SIGNIFICANTLY interrelated nature of human rights. I encourage the LGBTI movement to stay active in the struggle of all rights for all people. Because of their historical experience, LGBTI persons have a unique insight into the importance of rights, and the human cost of their not being realised. Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore TD, speaking at the ILGA-Europe Conference in Dublin, 2012
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Ireland has made substantial progress on LGBT rights over the last 20 years, and both contributes to and benefits from progress on LGBT rights at the EU, the Council of Europe and the UN. GLEN and many other organisations benefited from the solidarity of LGBT organisations in other countries in achieving that progress. GLEN continues to work both at an EU level, primarily through the International Lesbian and Gay Association – Europe (ILGA-Europe), and internationally, to promote LGBTI rights.
GLEN works with ILGA-Europe supporting their efforts to enhance protections for LGBT people in Europe through the EU, the Council of Europe and the OSCE, and GLEN Director Brian Sheehan was recently elected to the Board of ILGAEurope. GLEN are also members of the ‘Amsterdam Group’, a group of national LGBT organisations from Europe and the US who work with their Governments on LGBTI rights internationally. GLEN hosted the annual ‘Amsterdam Group’ conference in Dublin in 2012.
One of the most significant events took place in Dublin in October 2012, when the Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore TD delivered the keynote address at the annual ILGA-Europe conference. GLEN and a range of national and regional LGBT organisations from Ireland hosted 350 lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) activists from all across Europe at the conference that explored the theme of Advancing LGBTI Equality in Challenging Economic Times.
The Tánaiste has recently appointed GLEN to the Joint Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade / Non-Governmental Organisations Standing Committee on Human Rights. GLEN and Front Line Defenders, the international foundation for the protection of human rights defenders based in Dublin, have collaborated on a series of events to raise awareness of the work of LGBTI human rights defenders across the world, including an information event with visiting LGBTI human rights defenders and Irish LGBT activists at the Front Line Dublin Platform in 2011.