Abstract

The late 19^th century saw the spread of anti-homosexual criminal laws to British colonies. The iconic example was the Indian Penal Code of 1860, with its prohibition of ‘carnal intercourse against the order of nature,' a rewriting of the anti-Catholic ‘buggery' law of 1534. The language of 377 travelled around the British colonial world. France and certain other parts of Europe had decriminalized homosexual acts a century earlier, so the colonial powers of Europe spoke with different voices. Modern decriminalization is largely the product of the human rights era - sixty years since the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Recommended Citation

Sanders, Douglas E. (2009) "377 and the Unnatural Afterlife of British Colonialism in Asia," Asian Journal of Comparative Law: Vol. 4 : Iss. 1, Article 7.
DOI: 10.2202/1932-0205.1176
Available at: http://www.bepress.com/asjcl/vol4/iss1/art7