To Geneva and back: externalising anti-LGBT hate crime as a policy issue

How and why states legislate against hate crime and what role various actors – including human rights movements and international bodies – play in enacting change is attracting increased scholarly interest. Drawing upon primary, mixed-methods research, with Poland as our case study, this paper seeks to understand how new transnational advocacy opportunities change the way local activists push for improved legal protection from anti-LGBT violence. Using Keck and Sikkink’s (1998) ‘boomerang’ model as our interpretative frame, we observe how Polish LGBT groups systematically work with intersectional and transnational networks to feed their grievances to international human rights institutions, which, in turn, apply pressure on the government to amend hate crime laws. We argue that such externalisation of hate crime as a policy issue is a result of the closing of political opportunity structures at home and the simultaneous appearance of advocacy opportunities abroad along with increased resources being made available to the LGBT movement. While the state still hesitates to change the law, there are signs that calls for a new approach to addressing hate crime, promoted by activists and international organisations, are increasingly being heard by bureaucrats in Warsaw, even if there is currently no political will to make any changes.