British Embassy in Chile Supports Visit of King's Professor

With the support of the British Embassy in Chile, Robert Wintemute, Professor of Human Rights Law at The Dickson Poon School of Law, spoke in Spanish at a conference earlier this month at the Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago.

The conference examined the implications for Chile, Latin America and the world of Karen Atala v. Chile. This was the first judgment of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights dealing with discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Professor Wintemute had served as an expert witness on the case law of the European Court of Human Rights at the Atala hearing, held in August 2011 in Bogotá, Colombia.

In its judgment handed down in February 2012, the Inter-American Court found that the Supreme Court of Chile committed multiple violations of the American Convention on Human Rights when it transferred custody of a lesbian mother’s three daughters to their heterosexual father in 2004, because she had begun living with another woman. The Court cited Professor Wintemute's expert witness report several times.

Read the full judgment here.

Left to Right: Lidia Casas, Tomas Vial, Judith Schoensteiner (all from Universidad Diego Portales) and Robert Wintemute (King's College London).