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À partir d’une étude des politiques suivies dans six pays de l’Union européenne (Allemagne, Espagne, France, Hongrie, Royaume-Uni et Suède) en matière d’emploi des personnes handicapées, les auteurs analysent la compatibilité des législations avec l’article 27 (emploi) de la Convention relative aux droits des personnes handicapées des Nations Unies sur les politiques d’emploi des pays membres de l’Union européenne. S’appuyant sur certains rapports, officiels et critiques (shadow), récemment produits dans le cadre du suivi de l’application de la Convention, ainsi que sur les documents traitant des politiques d’emploi ou de non-discrimination suivies pour les personnes handicapées par ces pays, ils mettent en lumière les difficultés d’ajustement à ces nouvelles règles. Les principaux points d’achoppement des dispositifs légaux étudiés de ces pays, avec le texte et l’esprit de la Convention, sont : (1) Les définitions du handicap trop restrictives par rapport aux lois de non-discrimination; (2) Les types d’emploi refusés aux personnes handicapées; (3) Le manquement aux aménagements raisonnables dans des domaines liés à l’emploi; et (4) Le travail protégé lorsqu’il est dérogatoire au droit commun du travail. Enfin, pour conclure et imaginer la nature des gains à attendre de l’amélioration des textes dans le sens de la Convention, sont présentées les performances effectives en matière de participation de ces personnes au marché ordinaire du travail., Examining policies implemented in six countries members of the European Union (Germany, Spain, France, Hungary, United Kingdom and Sweden) concerning employment for people with disabilities, the authors analyze the compatibility of the legislations with Article 27 (on employment) of the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities on the employment policies of the countries members of the European Union. Using as material some recent official and shadows reports produced for the monitoring process of the implementation of the Convention as well as documents referring to the policies on employment or non discrimination for people with disabilities in these countries, they highlight the difficulties for an adjustment to these new rules. The main stumbling blocks for the legal provisions of these countries with the letter and the spirit of the Convention which were examined are: (1) Definitions of disability that are too restrictive referring to non discrimination; (2) Types of work positions which could be denied to people with disabilities; (3) The lack of reasonable accommodation of the workplace; and (4) Sheltered work when not applying the current Work Code. Finally, to conclude, and imagine the nature of the gain to expect from the improvement of the law in respect with the Convention, the true achievements in terms of participation of these persons with disabilities to the open labour market are reported.

With its evolution, society has introduced human rights as intrinsic values in its acts on the regulation of relations of human nature. Significant victories in the struggle for social freedoms materialized with the adoption of the first declarations of rights, which formed the basis for the passing of later constitutions. Therefore, the modern state, inclined to the protection of its citizens, is unthinkable in its functionality, without stating and guaranteeing human rights in their fundamental law. In addition, it is necessary to point out that these rights have a universal character, namely their protection for each person, regardless of nationality, ethnicity, race, religion, level of health, person’s status, etc. The Constitution of Romania states in art. 15 par. (1) on this that: “All citizens benefit from the rights and freedoms enshrined in the Constitution and other laws and have the obligations provided for therein”.

Uno de los derechos fundamentales de la persona, por el mero hecho de serlo, es la no discriminación por razón del nacimiento, raza, sexo, religión, opinión o cualquier otra condición o circunstancia personal o social. En nuestro Ordenamiento jurídico, el principal instrumento para la lucha contra la discriminación por móviles racistas, ideológicos, religiosos, lo constituye el artículo 510 del Código penal, modificado por la L.O. 1/2015, de 30 de marzo. En el presente estudio se analiza la compatibilidad del art. 510 con la Decisión Marco 2008/913/JAI del Consejo de 28 de noviembre de 2008 y la doctrina del Tribunal Constitucional, así como la aplicación que de los citados delitos efectúa la Jurisprudencia.

The long-standing EU acquis of equal pay between male and female workers still proves to be a source of inspiration in the fight against discrimination, even in matters beyond the EU’s competence. This article deals with differences in status between blue- and white-collar workers, which have been haunting many Member States even as technological progress erodes its justification. Although this ground was never protected by EU law, a case study of the Belgian unified status with regard to occupational pensions (the second pension pillar), clearly shows the impact of the jurisprudence of the CJEU. In line with this EU case law, there is no requirement to grant the most beneficial pension scheme to all employees, which could lead to equal, but nevertheless very modest occupational pensions. Based on the preliminary results, we can predict that the Belgian unified status will have a positive effect on the number of blue- and white-collar workers affiliated to a pension scheme. It is, however, unlikely that the high level of benefits of the most generous pension schemes will be retained after harmonisation, considering the financial impact on the employer. It is therefore to be expected that the unified status will indeed lead to equal occupational pension schemes between blue- and white-collar workers, but fail to act as a lever to improve the quality of the second pension pillar in Belgium.

The Constitution of Ukraine enshrines and guarantees the right to labor as an opportunity to earn a living by work that a person freely chooses or agrees to. However, the current conditions indicate that the consolidation and guarantee of everyone’s right to labor is not an unconditional evidence of its inviolability, the absence of unjustified restrictions and obstacles to its realization. One of such obstacles to the realization of this right is gender discrimination, which violates the balance of male and female labor at the labor market and creates an imbalance in the harmonious development of labor and closely related relations. In this regard, the author has emphasized the importance of the existence of a wide range of effective legal principles in the national labor legislation for non-discrimination while employment, in particular on the grounds of sex, as well as an effective mechanism for their realization. It has been clarified that the legal regulation of non-discrimination on the grounds of sex while employment is the legal regulation of labor and closely related relations through legal means in order to achieve gender parity, prevention of any manifestations of gender discrimination in the realization of the right to labor by each person and citizen. It has been established that the current state of the development of legislative provisions of Ukraine in the field of employment implies the existence of a certain range of legal principles regulating the prevention of discrimination on the grounds of sex while being employed. The emphasis has been placed on the analysis of certain legal principles of non-discrimination, the effect of which extends to the stage of job search and acquaintance with current vacancies at the labor market. Their legal content has been analyzed and suggestions for their semantic improvement have been provided. It has been determined that an unjustified refusal to be hired should be considered a refusal that is devoid of any motivation or when an employer refuses a candidate for reasons other than his professional and business qualities, or does not take into account a number of special requirements provided by the current legislation. The author has emphasized on the need to create legal conditions for the harmonious combination of the interests of an employee and an employer, which can assist in preventing discrimination and allowштп each party to labor and closely related relations to achieve the desired result in realizing their labor rights and interests.

This study aims to determine and analyzes the arrangement of non-discrimination principles based on GATs and its implementation in Indonesia from the regulation on the National Payment Gateway. The research method used in this article is a normative legal research by using historical, statutory and case approaches. The research shows that the regulation regarding the principle of non-discrimination is set in the Article II of GATs on the principle of Most Favoured Nation and Article XVII of GATs on the principle of national treatment. The non-discrimination principle states that a country must not be treated differently from other countries that are members of the GATs-WTO as stated in the Schedules of Specific Commitments. Indonesia issues regulations regarding the National Payment Gateway where several articles in the regulation differ from the commitments registered and restrict market access from other countries' services., Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui dan menganalisis pengaturan prinsip non diskriminasi berdasarkan GATs dan Impelementasinya di Indonesia dilihat dari pengaturan mengenai National Payment Gateway. Metode yang digunakan adalah metode penelitian hukum normatif dengan pendekatan sejarah (historical approach), perundang-undangan (normative approach) dan kasus (case approach). Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa pengaturan mengenai prinsip non diskriminasi jelas diatur di dalam GATs, yaitu Pasal II mengenai prinsip Most Favoured Nation dan Pasal XVII mengenai prinsip national treatment. Adapun prinisp non diskriminasi menyebutkan bahwa suatu negara tidak boleh melakukan perlakuan yang berbeda terhadap negara lain yang menjadi anggota dari GATs-WTO sebagaimana yang telah dinyatakan dalam Schedules of Spesific Commitment. Indonesia menerbitkan peraturan mengenai National Payment Gateway dimana beberapa pasal dalam peraturan tersebut berbeda dengan komitmen yang didaftarkan dan membatasi akses pasar dari jasa negara lain.

Historically, a lack of comparable data on the laws and policies that shape health, education, poverty, and other outcomes has hindered researchers’ ability to provide rigorous evidence on the effe...

The article conducts a legal analysis of the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights on the protection of the right to non-discrimination, which is a fundamental and general principle concerning human rights protection. During the period of functioning of the ECtHR, the Court has processed a huge amount of cases concerning violation of the right to equality and the inextricably linked principle of non-discrimination under Art. 14 and Art. 1 of Protocol № 12 of the ECHR. The evolution of the interpretation of the ECtHR shows the transformation of approaches to the interpretation of the right to non-discrimination. The court gradually began to expand the range of possible violations, from outright prohibition to the detection and the statement of indirect discrimination, and its decisions contributed to the normative formulations of the principle of non-discrimination in national systems and its gradual transformation from a purely declarative to a coherent effective mechanism of protection of discrimination victims and a mechanism of the approval of democracy, human dignity. The rule of law forms the central principle of interpretation of the Convention. A consensual investigation allows the ECHR to tie its decisions to the pace of change in national law, recognizing the political sovereignty of the respondent States and, at the same time, legitimizing its own decisions against them, adhering to the principles of a democratic state governed by the rule of law. The purpose of this article is to analyze peculiarities of the ECtHR's interpretive practice in cases concerning the right to non-discrimination.

In 2017, the municipality of Copenhagen made exercise mandatory for social workers performing physical tasks, such as lifting patients, cooking and cleaning. Private Danish companies have also started to impose exercise on their employees, including sedentary employees. Rationale behind mandatory exercise in the workplace is that it makes employees healthier and more productive, which is a win-win for employees and employers. However, mandatory exercise can put employees in a vulnerable position as employers potentially interfere with some of the fundamental rights of employees, namely their bodily autonomy and privacy. In addition, the increased emphasis on exercise at work and being ‘physically fit’ can indirectly lead to unlawful discrimination practices in recruitment, during employment, and at termination, as employers may exclude or sanction people who are not be able, or do not want, to exercise on various grounds, ranging from age, disability, pregnancy, religion, to health conditions. Therefore, this article examines the lawfulness of mandatory exercise at work in light of the fundamental rights of employees in two selected jurisdictions (Denmark and France), as well as under relevant European Union (EU) law, and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and related case law. Using a comparative and European perspective, the article examines the legality of mandatory exercise at work in the selected jurisdictions. It analyses and compares the level of protection of employees’ rights to privacy, autonomy and non-discrimination in France and Denmark. It also assesses whether mandatory exercise could qualify as an occupational health and safety measure in the selected jurisdictions. The article examines these questions in light of the increasing recognition and integration of fundamental rights in labour law at European, EU, and national levels. The article finds that the French and Danish labour laws offer different levels of protection of employees’ rights to autonomy, privacy and the right to non-discrimination. As a result, mandatory exercise would likely be deemed to be legal in Denmark, and illegal in France. However, the legality of mandatory exercise under Danish law could be challenged in light of the strong protection of employees’ fundamental rights at EU and European levels. The article concludes that rather than an obligation, exercise should be framed as a right for employees.

The principle of Non-discrimination of the World Trade Organization (WT0) aims to provide fairness to all member countries by means of the Most Favored Nations Treatment and National Treatment under the General Agreement of Trade and Tariffs (GATT). Accordingly, the free trade has been promoted in all regions of the world. However, many WTO members resort to take advantage of general exceptions to the non-discriminatory practice by invoking Article XX of WTO in disguise, thus affecting the free trade principle of WTO.

El presente artículo de reflexión tiene como objetivo, conocer a nivel general el estado actual en Chile, tanto en el sector público y privado, sobre la aplicación y respeto del Principio de no discriminación en los procesos de Reclutamiento y Selección de estas instituciones, con la finalidad de realizar un análisis sobre aquellos elementos que permiten o dificultan que se garantice este principio, como a su vez estudiar los avances que se han generado en esta materia durante las últimas décadas, en una materia tan importante para la gestión de personas en el siglo XXI que es la elección en el puesto de trabajo de los mejores profesionales para el desempeño de sus funciones, acabando con prácticas discriminatorias que a la larga traen consigo efectos nocivos sobre el desempeño de la organización.

People with cognitive impairments often have difficulties formulating, understanding, or articulating decisions that others judge reasonable. The frequent response shifts decision-making authority to substitutes through advance directives of the person or guardianship orders from a court. The Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities defends supported decision-making as an alternative to such forms of supplanted decision-making. But supported decision-making raises both metaphysical questions—what is required for a decision to be the person’s own?—and epistemological questions: how do we know what persons judge to be their good, when they have difficulty conceptualizing and articulating? It raises practical questions, too, such as protection against risks of exploitation. This article uses a non-discrimination account of legal personhood drawn from the CRPD to explore how common features of decisions employed by people without cognitive disabilities are important in supported decision-making too. These features include prostheses, guardrails, relationships, and social contexts.

The cases concerning transcription of a child’s foreign birth certificate, in which the registered parents are persons of the same sex, as well as confirmation of Polish citizenship by such a child, have been in the field of judicial cognition of Polish administrative courts for just several years. The issue of admissibility registering same-sex couples as parents of a child in Polish registry office has gained the great importance in the context of shaping social and family relations and the role of positive law as their regulator in dynamic society. When deciding such, the courts face the necessity to resolve not solely conflicts of norms (principles and values) within the domestic law, but also conflicts of legal systems. In the process of judicial application of law there is a need for balancing – on the one hand – the principle of the protection of the rights of a child, and – on the other one – other principles basic to the Polish legal order, i.e. the fundamental principles of the socio-political system (especially the principle of protection of marriage as a liaison of a men and a woman as well as the protection of family, motherhood and parenthood that arise from the art. 18 of Polish Constitution) and the general principles governing particular areas of civil, family and procedural law. The child’s welfare is a general constitutional clause that shall be interpreted with the reference to the constitutional axiology and to the entire legal system. The protection the child’s best interests is also the overriding principle of the Polish family law, and governs all of the regulations in the area of relations between parents and children. The important and delicate nature of this matter caused the discrepancies in the jurisprudence due to admissibility of such transcription in the light of the public order clause. The panel of seven judges of the Supreme Administrative Court, in Resolution No. II OPS 1/19, determined that Polish law did not allow the transcription of a foreign birth certificate showing same-sex persons as parents. Sprawy dotyczące transkrypcji zagranicznego aktu urodzenia dziecka, w którym jako rodzice wpisane są osoby tej samej płci, oraz potwierdzenia posiadania przez takie dziecko obywatelstwa polskiego od kilku lat pozostają na wokandzie polskich sądów administracyjnych. Zagadnienie dopuszczalności umieszczenia w polskich księgach stanu cywilnego wpisu osób tej samej płci, jako rodziców dziecka, ma ważkie znaczenie w kontekście kształtowania stosunków społecznych i relacji rodzinnych oraz roli prawa pozytywnego, jako ich regulatora w dynamicznie zmieniającej się rzeczywistości społecznej. Rozstrzygając w sprawach tego rodzaju, sądy stają przed koniecznością rozwiązywania konfliktów czy kolizji nie tylko norm (zasad i wartości) prawa krajowego, ale także kolizji systemów prawnych. W procesie sądowego stosowania prawa ważenia wymagają, z jednej strony, zasada ochrony praw dziecka, a z drugiej – inne podstawowe zasady porządku prawnego Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, tj. fundamentalne zasady ustroju społeczno-politycznego (zwłaszcza wynikająca z art. 18 Konstytucji zasada ochrony małżeństwa jako związku kobiety i mężczyzny, rodziny, macierzyństwa i rodzicielstwa) oraz naczelne zasady rządzące poszczególnymi dziedzinami prawa cywilnego, rodzinnego czy procesowego. Dobro dziecka to konstytucyjna klauzula generalna, której wykładnia powinna odbywać się przez odwołanie do aksjologii konstytucyjnej i całokształtu systemu prawa. Nakaz ochrony dobra dziecka stanowi też nadrzędną zasadę polskiego systemu prawa rodzinnego, której podporządkowane są wszelkie regulacje w sferze stosunków pomiędzy rodzicami i dziećmi. Ważkość tych materii sprawiła, że w orzecznictwie pojawiły się rozbieżności co do dopuszczalności owej transkrypcji z uwagi na klauzulę porządku publicznego. Skład siedmiu sędziów NSA w uchwale II OPS 1/19 przesądził jednak, że polskie prawo nie dopuszcza transkrypcji zagranicznego aktu urodzenia dziecka, w którym jako rodzice wpisane są osoby tej samej płci.

A question that has preoccupied sociolegal scholars for ages is whether law can change ‘hearts and minds’. This article explores whether non-discrimination law can create social change, and, more particularly, whether it can change attitudes and beliefs as well as external behaviour. The first part examines how sociolegal scholars have theorised about the possibility and desirability of using law as an instrument of social change. The second part discusses the findings of empirical research on the social working of various types of non-discrimination law. What conclusions can be drawn about the ability of non-discrimination law to create social change? What factors influence this ability? And can non-discrimination law change people’s hearts and minds as well as their behaviour? The research literature does not provide an unequivocal answer to the latter question. However, the overall picture emerging from the sociolegal literature is that law is generally more likely to bring about changes in external behaviour and that it can influence attitudes and beliefs only indirectly, by altering the situations in which attitudes and opinions are formed.

The principle of equality – the belief that all human beings are born free and equal – along with the correlated prohibition on discrimination are foundations of society. Equality is one of the most basic aspects of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and a pillar on which the United Nations (UN) was founded in 1945. Yet, following the emergence of the coronavirus in December 2019, this long-established fundamental human right is being increasingly threatened. Indeed, as the UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues, Fernand de Varennes, observed, “COVID-19 is not just a health issue; it can also be a virus that exacerbates xenophobia, hate and exclusion.”

This paper provides a detailed critical analysis of the case of Coman, where the Court of Justice clarified that the meaning of the term ‘spouse’ in Directive 2004/38 was gender-neutral, opening up the door for same-sex marriage recognition for immigration purposes all around the EU, thus destroying the heteronormative misinterpretations of the clear language of the Directive practised in a handful of Member States. The state of EU law after Coman is still far from perfect, however: we underline a line of important questions which remain open and which the Court will need to turn to in the near future to ensure that marriage equality moves beyond mere proclamations in the whole territory of the Union.

This essay focuses on the relation between amateur sport and Union citizenship, analysing the recent Biffi ruling of the European Court of Justice. It examines the opinion of the Advocate General and the Judgment of the ECJ, starting from the established case-law according to which sport is subject to EU law insofar as it constitutes an economic activity. Taking into account the possible application of the Treaty in light of the indirect impact on economic activities of the amateur athlete, the study analyses the legal implications of Article 165 TFUE considering the social function of sport. Finally, the paper illustrates to what extent the Biffi case represents a simple clarification of the existing legal relationship, a coherent case-law development, or another seismic ECJ ruling on sport.

Consociational democracy rests on the idea of granting certain collective political rights to the most powerful ethno-cultural groups, in addition to the individual rights of political participation of all citizens. Despite its relative popularity among scholars and international policymakers alike, its collectivist ethos has long been exposed to critique on various grounds, including the perspective of international human rights law. The essence of this critique is the allegation that, by institutionalising ethno-cultural identity as the basis of political participation, consociational arrangements discriminate against persons not belonging to the dominant groups. Focusing on the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, this article argues that equality analysis of consociational democracies, if taken seriously, illuminates our thinking about the possible compromises between the extremes of liberal individualism of the human rights perspective and inherent collectivism of consociational thought and practice. The article concludes that such compromises are both possible and necessary, but they seem to invite the embracing of additional institutional complexity in devising consociational arrangements.

This article examines the recommendations adopted by UN human rights treaty bodies in 2000-2017 addressed to Poland and concerning equality and non-discrimination. It aims to answer two research questions – firstly, to what extent are the recommendations convergent and, therefore, can we speak of a certain common standard of equality and non-discrimination formulated by treaty bodies? For this purpose, two case studies – on LGBT rights and women’s reproductive rights – have been presented. The second part of the research aims to establish to what extent do the recommendations of treaty bodies on equality and nondiscrimination affect Polish law.

The underrepresentation of women in law enforcement institutions is a global pattern. However, increasing awareness of gender inequality is stimulating the implementation of affirmative action poli...

Transgender people’s access to gender-binary facilities has recently become hotly debated. Those opposed argue that giving transgender people access to facilities corresponding to their gender identity creates a safety risk and discomforts others. This article addresses this controversy from the transgender children’s perspectives as reported by their parents. The findings on the arrangement of transgender children’s access to changing rooms in Norwegian schools show to what extent ways of accommodating transgender children’s use of changing and shower facilities at Norwegian schools accord with the right to non-discrimination. It is argued that the gender-binary organisation of facilities and the lack of private curtains in schools create inequality and exclude transgender children.

Le droit de codetermination des salarie(e)s aux conseils de surveillance des societes en Allemagne constitue, avec l’autonomie contractuelle reconnue aux organisations syndicales et patronales, l’un des piliers sur lesquels est fonde le partenariat social allemand. Cependant son avenir est au cœur des discussions controversees au regard de l’influence de plus en plus grandissante du droit communautaire europeen sur les legislations nationales. Cette influence se manifeste d’une part par le phenomene de contournement du systeme allemand de codetermination par les entreprises europeennes qui usent de leur liberte d’etablissement et d’autre part par la remise en question de la conformite des lois nationales relatives a la codetermination avec le droit primaire europeen – du moins jusqu’a l’arret de la Cour de justice de l’Union europeenne du 18 juillet 2017 dans l’affaire C-566/15 (Konrad Erzberger c. TUI AG).

The principles of equal rights and non-discrimination as well as the right to equality before the law and equal protection of the law are fundamental human rights principles enshrined under Article 55 of United Nations Charter and Article 7 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The UDHR, international human rights standards and state practise consistently view employment and the right to work to include pre-employment. Therefore, rights during pre-employment would also fall within the scope of right to work regime. It is important to stress that the employer must not make employment decisions based on personal characteristics such as gender, race, nationality, ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or any unrelated issues to inherent job requirements. Employer must base the employment relationship on the principle of equal opportunity and fair treatment and will not discriminate with respect to all aspects of the employment relationship, including recruitment and hiring, compensation (including wages and benefits), working conditions and terms of employment, access to training, promotion, termination of employment or retirement, and discipline. This paper will analyse the international laws, laws of other jurisdictions and Malaysian laws on protection against pre-employment discrimination. Recommendations would be accorded to ensure that Malaysia guarantee equal rights among jobseekers

Scholarship on ‘radical decoupling’ and ‘sham constitutionalism’ suggests that constitutional promises do not necessarily translate to state action. African states, dually concerned with affirming African Customary Law (acl) and international standards of human rights, face particular legislative challenges in this regard. This article examines 14 Commonwealth African states’ statutory regulation of polygamy, which epitomizes that apparent dilemma. Using simple indices to code levels of protection, it argues for disjuncture between constitutional and legislative levels of protection of women’s rights in polygamous customary marriages. This calls into question the supremacy of constitutions as a catalyst for social reform and the need for revision to African marriage laws on the basis of equality, cognisant of the position of women in legally pluralistic societies.

Australia has legislation in the form of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth) and the Disability Standards for Education 2005 (Cth) that has the objective of eliminating disability discrimination. The purpose of this scoping review was to determine the extent to which this legislation is achieving the elimination of discrimination against students with disability in primary and secondary schooling. The review reports on the findings of a systematic search of law and education databases that identified 18 peer-reviewed articles discussing the legislation, relevant literature and related case law in the context of the education of students with disability in Australia. Content analysis of the articles indicated the existence of problems in several areas of the intersection between the law, policy and practice. These are outlined under five key themes: inclusion/exclusion, jurisdictions and definitions, the complaints-driven system, legislation clarity and reasonable adjustments. The review concludes with recommendations and suggestions for action.

Algorithmic decision-making and similar types of artificial intelligence (AI) may lead to improvements in all sectors of society but can also have discriminatory effects. While current non-discrimination law offers people some protection, algorithmic decision-making presents the lawmakers and law enforcement with several challenges. For instance, algorithms can generate new categories of people based on seemingly innocuous characteristics, such as web browser preference or apartment number, or more complicated categories combining many data points. Such new types of differentiation could evade non-discrimination law, as browser type and house number are not protected characteristics, but such differentiation could still be unfair, for instance if it reinforces social inequality. This paper attempts to determine which system of non-discrimination law would best be applied to algorithmic decision-making, considering that algorithms can differentiate on the basis of characteristics that do not correlate with protected grounds of discrimination such as ethnicity or gender. The paper analyses the current loopholes in the protection offered by non-discrimination law and explores the best way for lawmakers to approach the issue of algorithmic differentiation. While we focus on Europe, this paper’s concentration on concept and theory rather than specific application, should prove useful for scholars and policymakers from other regions as they encounter similar problems with algorithmic decision-making.

Situating Sustainability reframes our understanding of sustainability through related concepts, practices, and case studies. The point of departure is the continual need to be conscious of how environmental knowledge and sustainability are issues constituted by long-standing inequalities. This book addresses the necessity in sustainability science to recognize how diverse cultural histories define environmental politics today. The differing geographic scope of this volume is joined by the disciplinary diversity of the contributors and their wide-ranging areas of specialization, bringing together researchers from cultural studies, anthropology, literature, law, behavioral science, urban studies, design, and development. As a truly transdisciplinary work, Situating Sustainability calls for research guided by the humanities and social sciences in collaboration with local actors informed by histories of place. The authors of this volume believe that situating sustainability cannot limit itself to the geographic borders of nations, epistemic standpoints, or to unmasking perspectives that falsely present themselves as objective or universal. The approach includes not only material practices like extraction or disaster recovery, but extends into the domains of human rights, education, and academic interdisciplinarity. Researchers are joined by artists whose work provides a platform to conduct research at the edges of performance, knowledge production, and critical commentary on socio-ecological infrastructures. All this will enable readers to better understand what sustainability means (or might yet mean) in their own locations, and how work in one place might support the efforts of others in other places. Designed for students, scholars, and interested readers, Situating Sustainability introduces the conceptual practices that inform the leading edge of engaged research in sustainability.

At the level of international legal regulation disability policy is currently one of the priority areas. However, such attention to the international legal protection of the rights of persons with disabilities has not always been the case, as the problems of persons with disabilities have long remained unnoticed by the international community. Rare attempts to improve the situation with persons with disabilities were usually limited to medical protection and integration into the labor market, while the task of their full and actual involvement in public life was not even set. The article analyzes the preconditions, reasons and features of the evolution of the system of international legal protection of the rights of persons with disabilities, as well as examines the transformation of approaches to defining the concept of "disability" at the level of international law. The article defines the main stages of the formation of international cooperation in the field of protection of the rights of persons with disabilities. The article presents the results of the analysis of international legal documents on disability policy for the period from the beginning of the twentieth century to 2020.

In Chapter 1 the development of the EU non-discrimination regime is introduced, first in terms of legal developments. It recapitulates the steps starting from the founding Treaties, which only dealt with discrimination on the grounds of nationality and gender, up until the Treaty of Amsterdam, introducing the competence for the discrimination grounds of racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, age, disability, and sexual orientation, and the adoption of the two Directives which are the focus of the book: Directive 2000/43/EC and Directive 2000/78/EC. It also points at financial instruments and institutions set up in parallel to support the implementation of these Directives and the recent adoption of a series of Strategic Documents and Action Plans in the Commission’s attempts to achieve a Union of equality. The second sub-chapter then discusses the shift from non-discrimination to substantive equality on the basis of the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and closes with some considerations regarding the different levels of impact of EU anti-discrimination law in national constitutional systems.

Chapter 2 reviews explanatory models of rule adoption of Europeanization, policy transfer, and diffusion literature, and the conditions they identify for a successful transfer of norms and ideas. It argues that the external incentives model might best explain the likelihood of rule adoption but if the ultimate goal is that rules are applied and enforced, learning-based approaches have to be strengthened in the enlargement process. Different approaches to reflexive governance, from collaborative-relational to experimentalist, pragmatist, and genetic approaches, all focusing in different ways on the conditions required for a learning process to be successful, are presented claiming that they offer ideas that merit closer study to establish their potential in improving the performance in the EU enlargement process and beyond. The hypothesis is that reflexive governance is well suited to improve compliance and reduce likelihood of backsliding as it captures all the actors involved in framework regulation as is the case of the transposition of binding directives. To test the plausibility of the hypothesis, a case study on Croatia with a focus on the equality acquis is carried out by means of process tracing. This showed that while the argument could be partly confirmed, there is also a need for more consistent and transparent monitoring, which could be achieved by the use of indicators. Furthermore, pooling of results and the drawing of conclusions from such results, which is decisive for the success of a reflexive governance system, is given too little attention. The subsequent chapters thus set out to make a contribution to these identified lacunae.

Background The delivery of compassionate and non-discriminatory care to all patients in the hospital environment is vital. Yet, this striking surgical case report demonstrates that ignorance and prejudice against transgender patients still exists, resulting in poorer health outcomes. Case presentation A 64-year-old transgender woman presented with severe epigastric pain and left arm weakness. She became haemodynamically unstable as a result of Type A aortic dissection during thrombolysis for a presumed ischaemic stroke. The patient was addressed as ‘Sir’ on multiple occasions causing her visible distress; she confided in the team that she felt judged and that her concerns were not taken seriously. When the thoracic surgery registrar was informed that the patient was transgender and used female pronouns, their reply was that this information was ‘irrelevant’ and ‘unimportant’. Conclusions Barriers to health care for transgender individuals and a focus on compassion when treating the surgical patient are discussed. A lack of education, individual ignorance and the serious nature of this case led to psychological distress and may have contributed to a delay in diagnosis. There is an urgent need to raise awareness of transgender health disparities in medical and surgical training, to ensure that all patients are treated equally, and their dignity is maintained, even in challenging and stressful situations. Appropriate engagement and leadership from senior members of the surgical team will foster non-discriminatory practices and the creation of an inclusive environment, focusing on the use of correct pronouns and addressing patient concerns.