Toonen V. Australia

Toonen v. Australia was a landmark human rights complaint brought before the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) by Tasmanian resident Nicholas Toonen in 1994. The case resulted in the repeal of Australia's last sodomy laws when the Committee held that sexual orientation was included in the treaty’s antidiscrimination provisions as a protected status.

In 1991, Toonen sent a communication to the Human Rights Committee in which he complained that Tasmanian laws criminalising consensual sex between adult males in private were a violation of his right to privacy under Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR); distinguished between people on the basis of sexual activity, sexual orientation and identity in violation of article 26; and meant that gay men in Tasmania were unequal before the law.

As a result of his complaint to the Human Rights Committee, Toonen lost his job as General Manager of the Tasmanian AIDS Council, because the Tasmanian Government threatened to withdraw the Council’s funding unless Toonen was fired. On 31 March 1994, the Committee agreed that, because of Tasmania’s law, Australia was in breach of the obligations under the treaty. In response, the Commonwealth Government passed a law overriding Tasmania’s criminalization of gay sex, Australia's last sodomy laws. The Toonen decision has subsequently been referenced by the Committee and by other treaty bodies in making rulings.