A challenging, yet highly accessible, introduction to discrimination law which highlights the major issues and asks how the right to equality can be made more effective. This edition includes expanded material on how jurisdictions formulate grounds of discrimination with thematic analysis on topics such as racism, sexism, and LGBTQ+ rights.

This book contributes to a critical reflection of current legislative and jurisprudential developments in Non-Discrimination Law, focusing on the European Union. The book is focused on intersectionality between gender, race and disability and the question of whether, and to what extent, this intersection can be adequately addressed in (EU) law. The discussion rests on two basic assumptions. First, the multiplication of 'discrimination grounds' in EU law and other legal regimes should not result in a dilution of the demands of equality law. Accordingly, the book focuses on the three key grounds - race, gender and disability. These constitute nodes around which other discrimination grounds can be grouped. Second, any multi-ground non-discrimination law framework needs to engage with the question of discrimination on several grounds. This book provides a critical evaluation of some of the problems presented by such intersectionality and an opportunity to explore the issues in depth. This collection offers some new proposals relating to the regrouping of identity categories and to the general approach to socio-legal research in the field. It also contains a comparative section, which expands on practical experiences with intersectionality and law, and a section dedicated to juridical responses to intersectionality. The book will be a valuable resource for researchers, academics and those working in the area of EU non-discrimination law and policy.

Equality and Discrimination Law in Australia: An Introduction adopts a groundbreaking approach in its delivery of equality and discrimination law principles. It analyses equality as a goal of the law, and acknowledges that to prevent discrimination modern laws must challenge the beliefs, practices, systems and structures that enable it.

Presenting the issues of discrimination in employment in a multifaceted manner, this book examines the standards on anti-discrimination law for employment at international and EU levels and those deriving from national jurisdictions. Bringing together top scholars in the field of anti-discrimination employment law, this book explains the conceptual and theoretical foundations of the principle of non-discrimination in employment and assesses the most significant changes to law and ongoing challenges in the Netherlands, Poland, Germany, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India, Switzerland and Israel. Identifying emerging trends in anti-discrimination employment law, this book offers a comparative, problem-solving approach and an in-depth analysis of new developments in both anti-discrimination statutory law and case law. Addressing employment law with a focus on anti-discrimination law and human rights law, this book will be essential reading for students, academics and practitioners working in the fields of labour and employment law, anti-discrimination law and human rights law and offers an international comparative overview of the most up-to-date issues relating to discrimination.

Equality and Anti-Discrimination Law covers The Equality Act 2010 and other anti-discrimination protections both within the UK legislation and in the context of EU law. The UK’s approach to ensuring equality for the workforce is notoriously difficult to navigate, with various aspects of protection being contained and discussed across a range of statutory and non-statutory instruments. Although the Equality Act 2010 is often viewed as central to the equality laws of the UK, there are other key areas that must also be borne in mind, including atypical worker protection and family friendly regulation: each of these are discussed to sufficient detail to enable the reader to gain a working understanding of how each operates. In considering each of these key areas this text attempts to decipher and navigate each of them with the end user in mind. The protections, and the thresholds that need to be satisfied to acquire the protections, are broken down into their constituent parts and analysed using key case law and relevant codes of practices with a view to ensuring that their practical use is understood by the reader. Through adopting this approach the book ensures that the reader gets to grips with key concepts that protect on an equality footing. The text takes account of case law from both UK courts, and European Courts where this is needed. This helps show the interaction that UK and EU law has in the area of equality law, and that the systems are interdependent to some extent. For those wishing to go beyond the simple practical application of the law the text touches upon a number of academic debates that exist in the area of equality law, to further stimulate those with an interest in the law, but further to highlight some of the perceived weaknesses that exist with the UK’s current approach to equality protection, and whets the appetite for further discussion.

In identifying a number of ‘fuzzy border’ cases (notably where pensionable age, pregnancy, residence, and marriage, are proxies for unlawful discrimination), Equality, Discrimination and the Law argues that the traditional notions of discrimination and victimisation are inadequate to implement equality policy and cannot represent fully the reality of discriminatory practices. When Mr and Mrs James - each aged 61 - went swimming, Mr James was charged for entry, while Mrs James was admitted free. The reason was that the local authority offered free swimming to those of ‘pensionable age’ (at the time, 65 for men and 60 for women). The House of Lords found that Mr James had suffered direct sex discrimination. This majority plurality decision indicated that sometimes a given set of facts does not neatly accord to traditional definitions of discrimination. This in turn encourages the judiciary to shape the law to fit the facts, which results in an inconsistent body of law full of ‘fuzzy borders’. Starting with the James case, this book investigates a number of ‘fuzzy border’ cases in the EU and UK based on nationality discrimination, notions of indirect discrimination, pregnancy and sex discrimination, marriage and sexual orientation discrimination, perceived discrimination, and victimisation. The argument concludes that fixed notions such as ‘direct and indirect discrimination are mutually exclusive’ do not stand up to scrutiny and that it must be recognised that the traditional concepts of discrimination and victimisation do not reflect the reality of practice. This work is essential reading for students, scholars and practitioners in all EU and English-speaking jurisdictions, particularly post-graduates, Policy/Law-makers, and those on dedicated equality undergraduate courses.