Non-Discrimination Law
Full Citation
D Schiek, L Waddington, M Bell (eds.) with the collaboration of T Choudhury, O De Schutter, J Gerards, A McColgan and G Moon, Cases, Materials and Text on National, Supranational and International Non-Discrimination Law (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2007) cxix + 998 pp. (ISBN 978-1-84113-748-3)
News
- The casebook on non-discrimination law has been set as compulsory reading for students taking the course "Leading Cases in Human Rights Law" offered by the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, Law Faculty, University of Oslo. The course is taught by Prof. Ronald Craig and addresses leading cases (supranational, national and international) in three fields: Non-discrimination and Equality, the rights of minorities and indigenous peoples, and freedom of religion and belief. [4 March 2009]
- Lord Bingham cited the first chapter of the Casebook on Non-Discrimination Law in paragraph 4 of the recent House of Lords' judgment in Mayor and Burgesses of the London Borough of Lewisham v Malcolm [2008] UKHL 43. The judgment is one of the most important cases on disability discrimination in the UK, where the House of Lords overturns well-established approaches to applying the comparator test in disability discrimination. [17 August 2008]
- Editors and chapter authors of the casebook on non-discrimination law contribute to Expert Group Meeting on Non-Discrimination in Brussels. Authors of the casebook on non-discrimination law contributed to the Expert Group on Non-Discrimination meeting organised by the European Network Against Racism on 26 March 2008. The meeting was facilitated by casebook editor, Prof. Mark Bell, and fellow editor, Prof. Lisa Waddington, as well as chapter authors Prof. Janneke Gerards and Gay Moon, contributed. The casebook was used as a reference source. [30 March 2008]
- First reference to casebook on non-discrimination law by Advocate General. Advocate General Poiares Maduro has referred to the Ius Commune casebook on non-discrimination law in his Opinion on the Coleman case. The case concerned the question of whether the Employment Equality Directive (2000/78) protects people who, although not themselves disabled, suffer direct discrimination and/or harassment because they are associated with a person with a disability. The Advocate General advised the Court to find that the Directive does protect such individuals who experience discrimination by association. Referring to the casebook he stated:
"It has been pointed out in the literature on discrimination that no conclusive answer as to whether discrimination by association is prohibited flows from Article 13 EC and the directives that were adopted under it. However, it has been suggested that such discrimination will probably be treated as falling within the scope of the anti-discrimination directives." [18 Febrary 2008]
- Equal Rights Trust places large order for copies of the casebook on non-discrimination law. The London based Equal Rights Trust has placed a large order for the casebook on non-discrimination law. The Trust is an independent international organisation whose purpose is to combat discrimination and promote equality as a fundamental human right and a basic principle of social justice. Established as a resource centre and a think tank, it focuses on the complex and complementary relationship between different types of discrimination, developing strategies for translating the principles of equality into practice. The Trust intends to distribute copies of the book to its partner organisations all round the world to assist them in their work to combat discrimination.
For more information on the Trust see: http://www.equalrightstrust.org. [18 Febrary 2008]
Cover Text
This is the fourth book in the ‘Ius Commune Casebooks for the Common Law of Europe’ series, developed for use throughout Europe and aimed at those who teach, learn or practise law with a comparative or European perspective. It is the result of the collaborative efforts of a panel of experts from various EU Member States. In common with earlier books in the series, this casebook presents cases and other materials (legislative materials, international and European materials, excerpts from books or articles, etc.). As non-discrimination law is a comparatively new subject, the chapters search for and develop the concepts of discrimination law on the basis of a wide variety of young and often still emerging case law and legislation. The result is a comprehensive textbook with materials from a wide variety of EU Member States. The book illustrates the distinct relationship between international, European and national legislation in the field of non-discrimination law. It covers the grounds of discrimination addressed in the Racial Equality and Employment Equality Directives, as well as non-discrimination law relating to gender. In so doing, it covers the law of a large number of EU Member States, alongside some international comparisons.
Table of Contents
Click on a chapter in the list below in order to access the detailed table of contents of a particular chapter.
Task Force
The list below shows the affiliations of the task force members at the time of writing/publication of the casebook.
Editors
- D Schiek (University of Oldenburg / University of Leeds)
- L Waddington (Maastricht University)
- M Bell (Leicester University)
Coordinator
- D Droshout (University of Leuven and Maastricht University)
Chapter Authors
- M Bell (Leicester University) (Chapter 2)
- T Choudhury (University of Durham) (Chapter 5)
- O De Schutter (University of Louvain la Neuve) (Chapter 7)
- J Gerards (University of Leiden) (Chapter 1)
- A McColgan (King's College, London) (Chapter 4)
- G Moon (Equality Project at JUSTICE, London) (Chapter 8)
- D Schiek (University of Oldenburg) (Chapter 3)
- L Waddington (Maastricht University) (Chapter 6)
Independent Advisory Board
The following panel of distinguished experts in the field of non-discrimination law were invited to comment upon the manuscript of the Casebook:
- C Barnard (Trinity College, Cambridge)
- T Degener (Evangelischen Fachhochschule Rheinland-Westfalen-Lippe)
- J Goldschmidt (University of Utrecht, former President Dutch Equal Treatment Commission)
- A Hendriks (University of Leiden, Dutch Equal Treatment Commission)
- C McCrudden (Lincoln College, University of Oxford)
- L Miguel Poiares Pessoa Maduro (Advocate General ECJ)
- G Quinn (National University of Ireland, Galway)
- H Ytterberg (Swedish Ombudsman for Sexual Orientation Discrimination and Judge)
National Reporters
- Z Apostolopoulou (e-ISOTIS, Athens) (Cyprus)
- S Baer (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin) (Germany)
- F Bayeri (Greece)
- C de Beausse de La Hougue (Paris II) (France)
- M Brandao Matias (College of Europe, Bruges) (Portugal)
- A Burneikiene (Equal Opportunities Ombudsman) (Lithuania)
- T Degener (Evangelischen Fachhochschule RWL, Bochum) (Germany)
- Z Dlugosova (The Citizen and Democracy) (Slovakia)
- T Ellul (Ellul Mifsud and DeBono Advocates) (Malta)
- G Feldhune (University of Latvia) (Latvia)
- P Foubert (University of Leuven) (Belgium)
- M Gijzen (Maastricht University) (Netherlands)
- J Guemes (European Disability Forum) (Spain)
- R Hession (Law Society of Ireland) (Ireland)
- M Ilieva (Bulgarian Helsinki Committee) (Bulgaria)
- I Ionescu (Centre for Legal Resources) (Romania)
- D Juodkaite (Global Initiative on Psychiatry) (Lithuania)
- A Kadar (Hungarian Helsinki Committee) (Hungary)
- J Kaminski (Polish Disability Forum) (Poland)
- A Kampf (Icon Institut) (Germany)
- K Koldinska (Charles University, Prague) (Czech Republic)
- K Konig (City of Vienna Municipality) (Austria)
- R Lampe (University of Maribor) (Slovenia)
- P Lappalainen (Swedish National Integration Authority) (Sweden)
- T Makkonen (Law and Consultancy Firm Timo A Makkonen) (Finland)
- A McColgan (King's College London) (UK)
- K Nizam (Consultant, Socialt Udviklingscenter) (Denmark)
- V Poleshchuk (Legal Information Centre for Human Rights) (Estonia)
- S Quinlivan (National University of Ireland, Galway) (Ireland)
- A Simoni (University of Florence) (Italy)
- C Sosa Erdozain (GLE Services, Brussels) (Spain)
- F Stork (Germany)
- V van der Plancke (Catholic University of Louvain) (Belgium)
- M Ventegodt Liisberg (Danish Institute for Human Rights) (Denmark)
- M Zajac Zysk (Mittal Steel Poland SA) (Poland)
Student assistants
- M Jesse (Maastricht University)
- H Kruijt (Maastricht University)
- R Rusu (Maastricht University)
Author Meetings
- Maastricht, 21-22 January 2005
- Maastricht, 3-4 February 2006
- Leuven, 11-12 August 2006
Background Information on the Development of the Casebook
The Development of a Casebook as Part of a Broader Project
 The production of this casebook was part of a larger project entitled: "Stimulating Public Interest Litigation at a Pan-European Level - Raising Knowledge and Imparting Skills" which was funded by the European Commission within the framework of the "Community Action programme to combat discrimination, 2001-2006". The project consisted of two complementary elements:
- the organisation of Summer Schools in 2005 and 2006 on disability and on race, ethnic origin and religious belief.
- the development of a European Non-Discrimination Law Casebook with associated internet site.
The Casebook strand also provided a comprehensive and composite knowledge base which was used as the basis for the Summer School programmes. In turn, the Summer School programmes added an extra dimension of imparting skills and yielded further information and insights of use in editing the Casebook.
The following summer schools, training courses and other events have been organised:
- Disability Discrimination Law Summer School: Comparative Perspectives on Effective Test Case Strategies under the EU Framework Directive (National University of Ireland, 4-15 July 2005)
- Summer School on Race, Ethnic Origin, Religion and Belief. General course (Maastricht University, 13-22 June, 2005) and Advanced course (European Institute of Public Administration, Maastricht, 23-24 June, 2005)
- Conference: Non-Discriminatory Europe. Towards Equality on Grounds of Race,
Ethnic Origin and Religion? (Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels, 24-25 April 2006)
- Training Courses on Race, Ethnic Origin, Religion, Belief and Disability (Maastricht University, National University of Ireland, European Institute of Public Administration and Centre for European Policy Studies (Maastricht, 14-20 May, 2006)
- Disability Discrimination Summer School (National University of Ireland, 6-16 June 2006)
The Approach
The influence of EC non-discrimination law upon national law encourages tendencies towards convergence and facilitates the distillation of common roots, and this has been examined in the casebook. The Casebook does not only cover the grounds of discrimination addressed in the Race and Employment Directives, but also covers non-discrimination law relating to gender. However, the book presents a balanced overview, and does not focus predominantly on this single ground. Moreover, rather than following a ground specific approach, the casebook is structured along the lines of themes which present themselves in cases of non-discrimination generally. The law of a large number of existing and future EU Member States has been covered. Mention has also been made of e.g. United States' law which may serve as an interpretative tool from which lessons for best practice may be drawn.
The Objectives of the Casebook
The casebook has a number of objectives:
- to provide practitioners with ready access to primary and secondary legal material needed to assist them in crafting test case strategies.
- to provide the judiciary with the tools needed to respond sensitively to such cases.
- to provide material to be used in Summer Schools.
- to facilitate a full overview of implementation of the Directives and of the state of the law with regard to all grounds covered by Article 13 EC including gender.
- to promote the move towards common high European standards in this area.
- to create awareness of best practice.
- be a tool to educate future European lawyers.
The pursued key results are:
- to substantially upgrade the knowledge-base and impart the necessary practical skills to enable practitioners to identify and pursue appropriate test cases.
- to expand the framework of reference beyond national law by exposing practitioners to creative interpretative approaches as revealed through an examination of European comparative law.
- to enrich the judicial process by enhancing the possibility of access to materials and practical examples of argumentative strategies.
The project aims not merely at stimulating test cases but also tries to ensure that its users are aware of the limitations as well as possibilities of the various argumentative strategies that are available. The casebook also provides examples of good (and bad) practice (including non-European initiatives / case law), facilitates cross fertilisation, i.e. the "copying" of examples of good practice by the judicial system (a challenge in a multi-lingual Europe with limited access to legislation and, particularly, case law outside the home jurisdiction), and reveals failures and inadequate implementation where legislative/judicial activism may be required.
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