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The article provides a brief overview of Title IX, a federal law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex in federally-funded schools in the U.S. Topics discussed include the judicial and regulatory decision interpreting sex discrimination for purpose of Title VII, cases which courts have considered Title IX's applicability to cases involving transgender plaintiffs and the application of the law to transgender discrimination context that have not yet been considered by the courts.

In this Article we argue for substantial reforms to our system of combating workplace gender discrimination in light of the Supreme Court's ruling in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes. To help counter discrimination victims' decreasing access to the courts, our proposals call for a narrow construction of the holding o/Dukes. At the same time, agencies such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs ( OFCCP), and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) can better use their regulatory authority to address gender discrimination. Further, regulatory agencies, arbitrators, and courts can mandate mentoring programs to assist employees in overcoming the effects of discrimination and provide a potential pathway for career success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the attempt to define sex and gender and the process of assigning them to each individual by the U.S. Supreme Court under the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It discusses the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins in which the Court held that gender stereotyping is sex discrimination under Title VII. It informs therapeutic jurisprudence helps to promotes mental health and well-being of individuals.

Copyright of Temida is the property of Victimology Society of Serbia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Marriage and citizenship have a complicated relationship to one another. Marriage is often the primary way in which a person can exercise and demonstrate his or her identity under law, by claiming legal benefits and by performing legal obligations. This Essay examines the history of one particularly salient example of marriage-as-citizenship—the derivative domicile rule—and uses this history to consider how the relationship between marriage and citizenship has changed and developed over time. The derivative domicile rule linked a woman's domicile, and her state citizenship along with all the rights and obligations it carried, with her husband's domicile by operation of law. This happened regardless of where she actually lived or what state she subjectively owed allegiance to. Derivative domicile remains pertinent today because many states still use it to determine state citizenship for married people, either as a presumption rebuttable by a married woman or as a rule that applies to both spouses and links their domicile by presuming they will each regard one single place as their home. The history and current application of the derivative domicile rule demonstrate that these presumptions fail to accurately reflect the preferences of many married people whose domiciles do not match their spouses'. This Essay argues that derivative domicile illustrates the dangers of uncritically eliding marriage and citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) and Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act (ADAAA) according to which the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission want to provide accommodations to the working pregnant women. It focuses on the additional rights against employers who did not provide various accommodations including bathroom breaks, periodic rest and leaves to the pregnant women. It suggests discussion among employer and employee may minimize the risk.

The article discusses the interpretation of the legal contexts and case law related to sex discrimination in the European law systems. Topics include the acknowledgment of discrimination's general principle by the Court of Justice, the comparison between the sex equality law in the European Union (EU) and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and the importance of the concept of equality.

The article examines the features of Indian Act, a Canadian statute that concerns registered Indians, and discusses how the act discriminated against women and eroded cultural values and practices within the Mi'kmaq nation.

The article examines the different approaches of Supreme Court of Canada to section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Topics discussed include the court's decision in the case 'Andrews v Law Society of British Columbia;' lack of success for equality-seeking individuals; and basic equality rights.

The article examines the different approaches of Supreme Court of Canada to section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Topics discussed include the court's decision in the case 'Andrews v Law Society of British Columbia;' lack of success for equality-seeking individuals; and basic equality rights.

The article offers information related Canadian constitutional case Edwards v Canada that decided that women were eligible to sit in the Canadian Senate. It discusses a idea of universal personhood and the living tree approach to constitutional interpretation are now recognized as cornerstones of the Canadian constitution.

From its passage by Congress in 1972 to its ratification failure in 1982, the Equal Rights Amendment ("ERA") pivotally shaped sex equality discourse. While historians and legal scholars have examined and analyzed its demise, its failure has been deemed inconsequential for constitutional doctrine--conventional wisdom submits that a "de facto ERA" was achieved through judicial action. This Article argues that this dominant narrative has obscured the other half of the equation--the role of Congress in implementing the "de facto ERA." Through original archival and legislative research, this Article offers a new account of congressional action aimed at entrenching the substantive guarantees of the sex equality principle. This Article introduces the Economic Equity Act to the sex equality narrative. Originally conceived as enforcement legislation for the ERA, this Article shows how congressional lawmakers used the omnibus Economic Equity Act for over a decade to articulate and advance their substantive vision of equality for women. Lawmakers introduced successive versions of the Act from 1981 to 1996, passing over thirty enactments. This Article argues that through the provisions of the Economic Equity Act, the women's movement, lawmakers, and their constituents staked claims to the emerging meaning of sex equality and the terms of women's economic citizenship--a critical chapter that has been written out of the histories of sex equality. This Article argues that this account rewrites our history of sex equality in three important ways. First, this Article contends that the Economic Equity Act constituted a decisive turning point in congressional activity--away from legislation effecting "equality in theory" through facial prohibitions on sex discrimination, to legislation aimed at achieving substantive equality or "equality in fact." Second, this account redresses a fundamental gap in the sex equality literature by showing how lawmakers advanced the Economic Equity Act in an effort to revise New Deal-era federal law and policy premised on the norm of the male breadwinner and female homemaker. Finally, this Article reveals the Economic Equity Act as a foundational chapter for understanding the historical and contemporary role of Congress in effecting sex equality. At stake for lawmakers advancing the Economic Equity Act were the terms on which the benefits and privileges of economic citizenship under federal law would be conferred in the wake of the societal changes precipitated by the modern women's movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the enactment of the California Insurance Gender Nondiscrimination Act (IGNA), which presents guidelines on the prohibition of discrimination of transgender people and transgender identity in insurance coverage. It provides brief information on the existing concerns related to healthcare access for transgender people. It also addresses shortcomings of the Act and new enforcement regulations of the California Department of Insurance (CDI).

The article focuses on the district court decision in the court case Hollingsworth v. Perry and discusses the decision in the context of sex discrimination claims, according to which discrimination against same-sex couples is a form of sex discrimination. It states that discrimination against based on sexual orientation in the U.S. is a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and mentions that the ruling in above case was not much successful in many state court cases.

The article focuses on the court decision in the court case Hollingsworth v. Perry and discusses how the decision affected marriage rights litigation and other state and federal court decisions in other cases related to marriage of same-sex couples in the U.S. It discusses efforts of the U.S. Supreme Court for preserving the rights of gay people in the country and expands on several other court cases related to rights to LGBT people in the use and law reforms related to sex discrimination.

The article focuses on history of divorce reforms and judicial practices involving the division of marital property for the benefits of women in the U.S. It further expands on the role of women, both feminists and antifeminists, in revolutionizing the law of marital property in the U.S. in relation to Equal Rights Amendment and gender discrimination. It also discusses defects in current marital-property rules and discusses marital-property laws by analyzing three case studies from Virginia, Connecticut and New York.

Over the last thirty years, many countries have passed some form of regulation to promote diversity in the workplace. The evolution of these legal and regulatory developments reveals a landscape filled with varied and multidimensional approaches to a common imperative. This article will survey a broad spectrum of regional approaches to global workplace diversity initiatives, focusing on the cultural and legal definitions of protected categories, advances in positive discrimination legislation, and the possible tensions between the promise and the reality of diversity regulation. In the past several years, different regions of the world have experienced unique successes and challenges in achieving workplace diversity. While the United States has embraced diversity initiatives as a whole, the European Union has pioneered efforts to achieve gender parity in corporate management, and countries in Asia have set progressive quotas to increase the representation of persons with disabilities in the workplace. From recruitment and retention to promotion and wage setting, multinational organizations, no matter where they are headquartered, must meet the legal challenges posed by both domestic and international antidiscrimination legislation. This article will address the collision of international privacy regulation and the demands of equal opportunity laws, particularly in the development of strategies to collect and report employee diversity statistics. This comprehensive survey will conclude with a discussion of recent trends in global diversity awareness, such as an increased focus on pay equity legislation and the impact of the global recession on cross-border diversity initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The determination that sexual harassment constituted “discrimination based on sex” under Title VII was first made by the lower federal courts, not Congress. Drawing from the literature on policy diffusion, this article examines the adoption of hostile work environment standards across the U.S. Courts of Appeals in the absence of controlling Supreme Court precedent. The results bolster recent findings about the influence of female judges on their male colleagues and suggest that in addition to siding with female plaintiffs, female judges also helped to shape legal rules that promoted gender equality in the workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified more than a century and a half ago, courts have yet to delve into its relevance to gender discrimination. This oversight is unfortunate given the extent to which jurisprudence about another Reconstruction Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment, has evolved beyond its original racial confines to include gender, disability, sexual orientation, and other forms of group-specific inequalities. A progressive interpretation of the Thirteenth Amendment should likewise expand congressional enforcement authority beyond race. As was the case with its Fourteenth Amendment counterpart, the Thirteenth Amendment was initially ratified to prevent racial discrimination, but its antisubordination principles are also relevant to policies for abolishing gender discrimination. This underexplored area of law offers tremendous potential for providing redress against a variety of private, state, and institutional forms of gender discrimination that are not actionable under current civil rights statutes. This Essay demonstrates how broad concepts of liberty, which abolitionists, feminists, and Congress developed before and after the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, seamlessly lend themselves to the enforcement of gender equality norms. Over the last forty years, the Supreme Court has recognized the existence of federal authority to prevent state gender discrimination. The Thirteenth Amendment is a source of legislative authority that can be used to address private acts of discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under what circumstances should we understand government's racist or otherwise hateful speech to violate the Equal Protection Clause? Government speech that communicates hostility or animus on the basis of race, gender, national origin, sexual orientation, or other class status can facilitate private parties' discriminatory behavior, deter its targets from certain important opportunities or activities, and communicate a message of exclusion and second-class status. Contemporary equal protection doctrine, however, does not yet fully address the harms that such government expression potentially poses. The recent emergence of the Court's government speech doctrine--which to date has emphasized the value of government expression without yet fully addressing its potential costs--offers an important new opportunity to consider the situations in which government speech might offend equal protection values. This Article offers a framework for assessing the equal protection implications of government speech that expresses hatred on the basis of class status. To this end, it first identifies the ways in which such speech might inflict a range of discriminatory behavioral and expressive harms. The Article then describes lower courts' general failure to address these potential harms when considering equal protection challenges to such government expression, and contrasts courts' more expansive understanding of the constitutionally salient harms potentially posed by government's religious speech in the Establishment Clause context. Drawing from the Establishment Clause experience, the Article then proposes two alternatives for determining when government's hateful speech runs afoul of equal protection values. First, under a behavioral harm approach, we might understand the Equal Protection Clause to prohibit hateful government expression when it would facilitate private parties' discrimination or cause class members to alter their behavior--for example, by discouraging class members from pursuing a government job or petitioning the legislature because they reasonably conclude that such efforts would be pointless or unwise. Second, under an expressive meaning analysis, we might understand the Equal Protection Clause to prohibit government speech that communicates that class members are outsiders or second-class citizens. After addressing possible objections, the Article concludes that both approaches more accurately recognize those situations in which government speech may inflict harms repugnant to equal protection values than does the status quo, which largely ignores or dismisses those harms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the seminal Sex Discrimination Act 1975, modern British equality law developed in a piecemeal fashion over four decades. The landmark Equality Act 2010 was designed to unify, simplify and, to a limited extent, strengthen the legislation in this area. Despite its long gestation period, the Bill suffered from a lack of parliamentary scrutiny. This article sets the Equality Act in context and, by analysing certain aspects, discusses how far it has met those aims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Combating persisting gender inequalities in all spheres of society is a longer-term challenge, since it entails structural and behavioral changes and a redefinition of the roles of women and men. Progress is slow, and gender gaps persist as regards employment rates, pay, working hours, and positions of responsibility, share of care and household duties, and risk of poverty. Equality between men and women is now indisputably recognized as a basic principle of democracy and respect for human rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reflects on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's litigation strategy that determines sex discrimination as a consequence of detrimental effects of gender stereotypes that restricted both men and women from living their desired lives. She expatiates that the 1970s equal protection laws of gender stereotypes kept women out of market sphere and kept men out of domestic sphere unlawfully. Title VII of the U.S. of Civil Rights Act enlists penalties for gender nonconformity.

The article focuses on the sex discrimination in employment. The author argues that the concept of employment sex discrimination was invented through the reflection of normative judgments on sexually regulated workplace standards. Topics include the U.S. court's interpretation of Title VII of the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964 and pregnancy discrimination in the U.S.

Sexual harassment is a complex and evolving practice. The rise of sexual discrimination in cyberspace is only one of the most recent and most striking examples of the phenomenon's increasing complexity. Sexual harassment law, however, has not kept pace with this evolution. Discrimination law has not been adequately "updated" to address new and amplified practices of sex discrimination. Its two principal limitations are (1) it treats only sexual harassment that occurs in certain protected settings (e.g. the workplace or school) as actionable and (2) it assumes that both the activity and the resulting harm of sexual harassment occur in the same protected setting. Thus, it is unable to address any harassment that occurs completely or partially outside of traditionally protected settings. By contrast, this Article proposes a "multiple-setting" conception of sexual harassment that both moves beyond traditionally protected settings and explicitly acknowledges that sexual harassment in one setting can produce harms in another. In order to address multiple-setting harassment, a third-party liability regime similar to that of traditional sexual harassment law should be introduced into non- traditional contexts. In the particular case of online harassment, liability should attach to website operators. This regime will create an incentive for website operators to adopt preemptive, self-regulatory measures against online sexual harassment, much as employers have done in the offline setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses equal protection of the law and the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit case U.S. v. Flores-Villar which deals with a father's inability to transfer U.S. citizenship to his foreign-born son as of April 2012. Gender-based discrimination is addressed in the Flores case, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court case Nguyen v. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

The article focuses on the gender differentiation in insurance contracts after the judgment in European Court of Justice case Association belge des Consommateurs Test-Achats ASBL and Others. v. Conseil des ministres. It informs that sex discrimination is generally prohibited in EU law. It considers the criteria for gender differentiation in insurance contracts and suggests some measures for the justifiable envision on the insurance law and legislation.

The author discusses the application of a structural theory of discrimination to the case involving Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Dukes. The author provides an overview on the relevant facts and procedural history of the case and a background of discrimination law, sex discrimination and stereotyping, and class actions. She analyzes the Court's decision, including the concurring and dissenting opinion of Justice Ginsburg and argues the adoptation of a structural approach to discrimination.

The article offers information on the status of constitutional equal protections provided to the LGBT community under the Equal Protection clause in the U.S. Topics discussed include the defense of marriage rights of homosexuals under the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), contribution of the administration of U.S. president Barack Obama in defending the sexual orientation-based discrimination and same-sex marriage as fundamental right guaranteed under the due process of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The United States and the European Union are both firmly committed to eliminating gender discrimination. However, as I show in this Article, they have adopted fundamentally different strategies in pursuing this objective: Whereas the United States offers plaintiffs much more generous procedural rules and far more powerful remedies, the European Union relies on more comprehensive substantive prohibitions against discrimination. What lies behind these different approaches? Contrary to existing scholarship, which emphasizes path dependence arguments, I argue that differences between gender discrimination laws in the United States and Europe can best be understood as the result of a fundamental ideological divide. U.S. law is designed to grant protection against discrimination across social boundaries. By contrast, much of Europe espouses a "social-democratic" conception of gender discrimination law that views the protection of working-class employees as its primary concern. Several European countries have recently adopted or are considering the adoption of mandatory gender quotas for corporate boards. However, as I demonstrate in this article, such quotas merely address the symptoms of a much more foundational issue. European gender discrimination law is designed to protect working-class women, not women with managerial aspirations. Quotas cannot redress this imbalance; they can merely hide its symptoms. Accordingly, European reformers who aspire to a more class-neutral gender discrimination law will have to consider much more profound structural changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses Title VII of the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964, focusing on sexual orientation discrimination in the workplace, the apparent lack of protection against such a crime under Title VII, and a proposed coverage for sexual orientation discrimination based on the idea that it is relational discrimination. Title VII reportedly protects an individual from being discriminated against due to his or her relationship with someone else of a different origin or race.

The article discusses the proposed international protection against discrimination aimed at homosexual and transgendered people as of January 2012, focusing on the importance of the United Nations Human Rights Council's (UNHRC) passage of the Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Resolution (Resolution) on June 17, 2011. According to the article, the Resolution is binding on all UNHRC member nations, but there is no punishment for a country that does not comply.

The article discusses women's rights, focusing on violence against women in the Pacific, found in the National Curriculum for Year 10 Human Wellbeing in New South Wales (NSW) Geography. Gender equality relates to equal opportunities for men and women to realise their potential, contribute to the development of their country, and benefit from participation in society. The 1984 Sex Discrimination Act of the Australian government promotes gender equality and eliminates discrimination based on sex. INSET: GENDER AND VOLUNTEERING.

An essay is presented, wherein the author responds to professor Angela P. Harris's gendered discrimination in mass incarceration conception as portrayed in the television program "The Wire". He expounds that mass incarceration should be referred as hyper incarceration in order to highlight vague reasons of incarceration, which fosters imprisonment of the U.S. poor people. He also presents insights into multidimensional masculinities theory of gender violence.

El artículo discute la participación de las mujeres en el mercado laboral, con especial énfasis en la demoninada economía invisible o economía no remunerada. La autora ofrece un análisis de las estadísticas sobre economía no remunerada en América Latina, a la vez que propone cambios en la distribución de las cargas laborales.

The article examines the case law of the European Court of Justice on sex discrimination from 2006 to 2011. It discusses the implementation of EU equality law in association with the issue of horizontal direct effect of directives mirrored in the sex equality case law. It also focuses on the discourse on retirement pension ages. In addition, it explores the issue of general equality in access to and supply of goods and services.

The article offers information and opinions about the use of the Equal Protection Clause in the U.S. Constitution by the prochoice movement to promote abortion rights. Topics include the history of sex discrimination laws, arguments about the burden of motherhood, and the inequality between men and women related to human biology.

The article discusses the decision of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) that men and women are equal before the law and before the underwriter. The authors state that the ECJ declared the Belgian legislation which allows insurers to treat men and women unequally in insurance pricing to be invalid. They note on the law of the European Union which prohibits discrimination in principle on the basis of gender.

This article focuses on the advancements in and limitations of international criminal law to address the range of harms experienced by women in times of armed conflict. International criminal law is an important tool, but not the only relevant structure or institution that has a role to play in addressing the underlying conditions and causes that produce systematic violence for women. The long-term success of post-conflict reconstruction rests upon understanding and legally articulating what women truly perceive as generally harmful to them, and then remedying those harms in the broadest possible sense. In assessing the influence and value of international and domestic criminal accountability for violations experienced by women, it is also important that we acknowledge law's limits. Criminal accountability has both symbolic and practical importance, but it must be combined with policy-making focused on the deep inequalities and disadvantages experienced by women in order to fundamentally transform women' lives in post-conflict societies. Feminists should be suspicious when law only addresses a fraction of transgressive sexual acts and fails to engender equality and nullify discrimination. Both are central to changing women's lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fourth European Working Conditions Survey carried out in the autumn of 2005 across 31 countries, including the 27 EU member states by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions revealed the seriousness of the problem in Turkey, which ranks third among the 31 countries surveyed for incidents of sexual harassment. Sexual harassment in the workplace in Turkey has come under spotlight recently with the rapid emergence of such claims, publication of studies and surveys, passing of EU acquis compatible laws and governmental circulars offering expanded protection against workplace harassment. These developments are expected to create an awareness and an increase in the already growing number of harassment-related lawsuits in Turkey that may help to reduce widespread silence on the matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Foro Internacional is the property of El Colegio de Mexico AC and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article discusses the need for the development of an alternative legal framework that could help understand the nature and problem of sex inequality in the U.S. It explores the defects inherent in the approach of the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to anti-discrimination in employment, and suggests the use of the gender ideology as an important concept in addressing sex inequality in courts. Moreover, it contends that the addition of a sexual orientation category can lead courts to adhere to a surface-level sameness/difference discourse in sex equality legislation.

In this paper we examine the variables that appear to impact the outcome of sexual harassment complaints. We have analysed 68 sexual harassment matters heard across Australia over the six year period between 2005 to 2010. In doing so, we have ascertained the apparent differences between the urban cases and the rural cases which might account for the relatively high percentage of successful rural matters. We did this in two ways. We first investigated whether the nature of the workplace and the type of harassment complained of differed between the urban and rural cases and if so, how these attributes might correlate with an upheld complaint. We also looked at the presence or absence of variables found in other studies to correlate with success (age, ethnicity, prompt reporting, corroboration, credibility as a witness). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on gender in terms of international human rights laws as of June 2011, focusing on issues involving gender identity and varying definitions for the gender label. Gender-based violence, which is primarily violence aimed at women by men, is examined. Discrimination directed at people based solely on sexual orientation and gender identity, is also mentioned.

The article discusses the potential protection against discrimination of sexual orientation in the workplace under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Topics include gender stereotypes in the U.S., sex discrimination court cases in the U.S. Supreme Court, and the debate over the definitions of sex and gender discrimination related to homosexuality under the Act. It is suggested that Title VII should be amended to include gender and sexual orientation to be protected against discrimination in the workplace.

Women have always been under-represented in the professoriate, despite purported regulation of Australian universities under both state and federal sex discrimination and equal opportunity regulatory frameworks. Research from Australia and around the world has highlighted longstanding problems for the career trajectories of women in academia, such as ingrained sex segregation both within and across disciplines, and the masculine culture of universities evident in the undervaluing of teaching activities for the purposes of promotion, an area where women have historically dominated. This paper discusses the relationship between such issues and the policies designed to address them, in order to illustrate how and why these regulatory frameworks are not achieving their aims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the analysis of parental alienation syndrome that may result to domestic violence, and gender bias among within families. It says that the evolution of the cause of action for parental alienation syndrome to parental alienation (PA) led to several undesirable results which offer unfair effect on women. Hence, to reduce the effect of PA on mothers, courts must discuss pubic policy on the dangers of alienation induced by their decline of a common-law on child's affection.

Like many governing bodies today, the United Nations is faring the question of whether laws that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation are legitimate. In particular, there is a current debate in the United Nations about whether Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) (providing protection against discrimination on the basis of, among other things, race, color, sex, national origin, or "other status") protects against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. This Comment will discuss the importance of this question in the UN today, and analyse whether protection based on sexual orientation is included in the UDHR based on the text and case law under the UDHR But because these approaches do not conclusively answer the question, this Comment will also adopt an approach from politicalphilosophy. Using the work of Mill, Locke, and Rawls, this Comment will analyse protection against discrimination based on sexual orientation from two alternative positions. The first considers whether discrimination based on sexual orientation may be necessary to the stability of non-oppressive states. The second considers whether such discrimination may be justified behind a contractarian veil of ignorance. Combined, these approaches demonstrate that laws that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation may be legitimate under the UDHR. A note as to the inspiration for this paper: there has been a great deal of recent scholarship advocating against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. There is significantly less scholarship, however, explaining why it may be legitimate for a state to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. In order to contribute something meaningful to this important debate, this Comment will go through a few arguments in support of the latter position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]