UN Committee Adopts Rights Resolution Despite Amendment Bid
The Third Committee passed a resolution on extrajudicial killings with 131 votes in favour after an Egypt-led amendment to remove LGBTIQ references failed.
Updated on Nov. 14, 2026 in LGBTQ+
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The UN General Assembly Third Committee adopted a resolution on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions with 131 votes in favour and none against. An Egypt-led amendment to remove references to sexual orientation and gender identity failed, with 74 countries voting to retain them and 69 supporting removal.
Why it matters
The United States voted for the amendment, the first time it has backed removing this language from the resolution, which has covered killings based on sexual orientation since 2002 and gender identity since 2012. The full General Assembly is scheduled to vote on the resolution in December, and the outcome will shape how the UN frames protections for LGBTIQ people at high risk of killing.
Outright International documented 233 killings of LGBTIQ people between January 2020 and July 2026, a figure the resolution's protections are meant to address. The vote tally on the amendment was 74 in favour of retaining the language, 69 for removal, 24 abstentions and 26 non-votes.
The players
Egypt
Egypt, a North African nation and member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, introduced the amendment on behalf of most OIC members.
United States
The United States, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, voted for the amendment for the first time to remove this language from the resolution.
Outright International
Outright International is a human rights organisation that documents violence and discrimination against LGBTIQ people and urged countries to stand by their votes.
The details
Egypt introduced the amendment on behalf of most members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. South Africa voted against it, while Ghana, Nigeria and Uganda supported removal. The resolution is presented every two years and identifies groups at high risk, including journalists, human rights defenders, Indigenous Peoples and victims of honour killings.
Timeline
2002: The resolution began including killings based on sexual orientation.
2012: The resolution began including killings based on gender identity.
2024: A similar amendment failed by 78 votes to 47.
December 2025: A similar Egypt-led amendment removed LGBTIQ language from a UN disability rights resolution with US support.
December 2026: The full General Assembly is scheduled to vote on the resolution.
Health Landscape
The December 2025 Egypt-led amendment removed LGBTIQ language from the UN disability rights resolution with US support, a pattern that the failed amendment on extrajudicial killings now follows in reverse. Together the two votes show the same bloc of states pressing to strip sexual orientation and gender identity references from UN texts.
The vote determines whether LGBTIQ people remain named as a high-risk group in a UN text on killings, which affects how governments and monitoring bodies report on such violence. The committee outcome may be the basis for future advocacy and national policy discussions on protections for these communities.
The takeaway
The vote shows that protections for LGBTIQ people in UN resolutions remain contested, and the December General Assembly vote will confirm whether the current language survives. Readers following international human rights policy should watch both that vote and the voting patterns of individual countries.
What happens next
The full UN General Assembly is scheduled to vote on the resolution in December, and the result will show whether the Third Committee's outcome holds.
Further reading
For more on how these protections are debated at the international level, see the LGBTQ+ section.
Source note: This article includes information reported by MambaOnline - LGBTQ South Africa online.
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