diff --git a/httplib2/__init__.py b/httplib2/__init__.py
index adc18a0..f70d7e7 100644
--- a/httplib2/__init__.py
+++ b/httplib2/__init__.py
@@ -40,6 +40,7 @@
 import hmac
 from gettext import gettext as _
 from socket import gaierror
+from iri2uri import iri2uri
 
 __all__ = ['Http', 'Response', 'HttpLib2Error',
   'RedirectMissingLocation', 'RedirectLimit', 'FailedToDecompressContent', 
@@ -125,6 +126,7 @@
     # Could do syntax based normalization of the URI before
     # computing the digest. See Section 6.2.2 of Std 66.
     request_uri = query and "?".join([path, query]) or path
+    scheme = scheme.lower()
     defrag_uri = scheme + "://" + authority + request_uri
     return scheme, authority, request_uri, defrag_uri
 
@@ -143,9 +145,10 @@
     try:
         if re_url_scheme.match(filename):
             if isinstance(filename,str):
-                filename=filename.decode('utf-8').encode('idna')
+                filename = filename.decode('utf-8')
+                filename = filename.encode('idna')
             else:
-                filename=filename.encode('idna')
+                filename = filename.encode('idna')
     except:
         pass
     if isinstance(filename,unicode):
@@ -752,6 +755,8 @@
         if not headers.has_key('user-agent'):
             headers['user-agent'] = "Python-httplib2/%s" % __version__
 
+        uri = iri2uri(uri)
+
         (scheme, authority, request_uri, defrag_uri) = urlnorm(uri)
 
         if not self.connections.has_key(scheme+":"+authority):
diff --git a/httplib2/iri2uri.py b/httplib2/iri2uri.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..70667ed
--- /dev/null
+++ b/httplib2/iri2uri.py
@@ -0,0 +1,110 @@
+"""
+iri2uri
+
+Converts an IRI to a URI.
+
+"""
+__author__ = "Joe Gregorio (joe@bitworking.org)"
+__copyright__ = "Copyright 2006, Joe Gregorio"
+__contributors__ = []
+__version__ = "1.0.0"
+__license__ = "MIT"
+__history__ = """
+"""
+
+import urlparse
+
+
+# Convert an IRI to a URI following the rules in RFC 3987
+# 
+# The characters we need to enocde and escape are defined in the spec:
+#
+# iprivate =  %xE000-F8FF / %xF0000-FFFFD / %x100000-10FFFD
+# ucschar = %xA0-D7FF / %xF900-FDCF / %xFDF0-FFEF
+#         / %x10000-1FFFD / %x20000-2FFFD / %x30000-3FFFD
+#         / %x40000-4FFFD / %x50000-5FFFD / %x60000-6FFFD
+#         / %x70000-7FFFD / %x80000-8FFFD / %x90000-9FFFD
+#         / %xA0000-AFFFD / %xB0000-BFFFD / %xC0000-CFFFD
+#         / %xD0000-DFFFD / %xE1000-EFFFD
+
+escape_range = [
+   (0xA0, 0xD7FF ),
+   (0xE000, 0xF8FF ),
+   (0xF900, 0xFDCF ),
+   (0xFDF0, 0xFFEF),
+   (0x10000, 0x1FFFD ),
+   (0x20000, 0x2FFFD ),
+   (0x30000, 0x3FFFD),
+   (0x40000, 0x4FFFD ),
+   (0x50000, 0x5FFFD ),
+   (0x60000, 0x6FFFD),
+   (0x70000, 0x7FFFD ),
+   (0x80000, 0x8FFFD ),
+   (0x90000, 0x9FFFD),
+   (0xA0000, 0xAFFFD ),
+   (0xB0000, 0xBFFFD ),
+   (0xC0000, 0xCFFFD),
+   (0xD0000, 0xDFFFD ),
+   (0xE1000, 0xEFFFD),
+   (0xF0000, 0xFFFFD ),
+   (0x100000, 0x10FFFD)
+]
+ 
+def encode(c):
+    retval = c
+    i = ord(c)
+    for low, high in escape_range:
+        if i < low:
+            break
+        if i >= low and i <= high:
+            retval = "".join(["%%%2X" % ord(o) for o in c.encode('utf-8')])
+            break
+    return retval
+
+
+def iri2uri(uri):
+    """Convert an IRI to a URI. Note that IRIs must be 
+    passed in a unicode strings. That is, do not utf-8 encode
+    the IRI before passing it into the function.""" 
+    if isinstance(uri ,unicode):
+        (scheme, authority, path, query, fragment) = urlparse.urlsplit(uri)
+        authority = authority.encode('idna')
+        # For each character in 'ucschar' or 'iprivate'
+        #  1. encode as utf-8
+        #  2. then %-encode each octet of that utf-8 
+        uri = urlparse.urlunsplit((scheme, authority, path, query, fragment))
+        uri = "".join([encode(c) for c in uri])
+    return uri
+        
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    import unittest
+
+    class Test(unittest.TestCase):
+
+        def test_uris(self):
+            """Test that URIs are invariant under the transformation."""
+            invariant = [ 
+                u"ftp://ftp.is.co.za/rfc/rfc1808.txt",
+                u"http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2396.txt",
+                u"ldap://[2001:db8::7]/c=GB?objectClass?one",
+                u"mailto:John.Doe@example.com",
+                u"news:comp.infosystems.www.servers.unix",
+                u"tel:+1-816-555-1212",
+                u"telnet://192.0.2.16:80/",
+                u"urn:oasis:names:specification:docbook:dtd:xml:4.1.2" ]
+            for uri in invariant:
+                self.assertEqual(uri, iri2uri(uri))
+            
+        def test_iri(self):
+            """ Test that the right type of escaping is done for each part of the URI."""
+            self.assertEqual("http://xn--o3h.com/%E2%98%84", iri2uri(u"http://\N{COMET}.com/\N{COMET}"))
+            self.assertEqual("http://bitworking.org/?fred=%E2%98%84", iri2uri(u"http://bitworking.org/?fred=\N{COMET}"))
+            self.assertEqual("http://bitworking.org/#%E2%98%84", iri2uri(u"http://bitworking.org/#\N{COMET}"))
+            self.assertEqual("#%E2%98%84", iri2uri(u"#\N{COMET}"))
+            self.assertEqual("/fred?bar=%E2%98%9A#%E2%98%84", iri2uri(u"/fred?bar=\N{BLACK LEFT POINTING INDEX}#\N{COMET}"))
+            self.assertEqual("/fred?bar=%E2%98%9A#%E2%98%84", iri2uri(iri2uri(u"/fred?bar=\N{BLACK LEFT POINTING INDEX}#\N{COMET}")))
+            self.assertNotEqual("/fred?bar=%E2%98%9A#%E2%98%84", iri2uri(u"/fred?bar=\N{BLACK LEFT POINTING INDEX}#\N{COMET}".encode('utf-8')))
+
+    unittest.main()
+
+    
diff --git a/httplib2test.py b/httplib2test.py
index 2912217..fbcd0d7 100755
--- a/httplib2test.py
+++ b/httplib2test.py
@@ -77,6 +77,14 @@
         self.http = httplib2.Http(cacheDirName)
         self.http.clear_credentials()
 
+    def testGetIRI(self):
+        uri = urlparse.urljoin(base, u"reflector/reflector.cgi?d=\N{CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER DJE}")
+        (response, content) = self.http.request(uri, "GET")
+        d = self.reflector(content)
+        self.assertTrue(d.has_key('QUERY_STRING')) 
+        self.assertTrue(d['QUERY_STRING'].find('%D0%82') > 0) 
+
+    
     def testGetIsDefaultMethod(self):
         # Test that GET is the default method
         uri = urlparse.urljoin(base, "methods/method_reflector.cgi")