The emerging global discourse of sexual rights.

Since 1945, United Nations (UN) conferences and documents have promoted human rights as essential to individual liberty and international peace. It took until 1994, however, for the term "sexual rights" to first appear in a UN document. Recently, other groups have also been promoting the idea of sexual rights. The professional and scientific World Association of Sexology offered a Declaration of Sexual Rights in 1999. In 2000, The World Health Organization co-authored "Promotion of Sexual Health," including a central role for sexual rights. This emerging sexual rights discourse can be linked to the women's rights and gay and lesbian rights movements of the 1970s, and to the AIDS pandemic of the 1980s.