Comparative discrimination law: Age as a protected ground

This comparative review of age as a protected ground in discrimination law explores the underpinning questions and themes related to two main dimensions of age discrimination. The first dimension is structural, economic and labour market driven, whereby age is used to allocate a range of rights, obligations and benefits within society. The second is the social justice and equality dimension, in which age is understood as an aspect of individual identity that is worthy of protection against indignity or detriment. The review then considers the law on age discrimination in a number of jurisdictions, the EU law, the UK, Sweden, USA, Canada and South Africa, and assesses the extent to which the underpinning questions explain the developing case law

Freedom of religion under the European Convention on Human Rights: Foreshadowing interpretative dilemmas

This chapter focuses on those provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) most clearly relevant to freedom of religion: Article 9, and Article 2 of the First Protocol. These provisions are placed in context, both in terms of the development of freedom of religion at the international level, and in terms of the history of the drafting of the provisions. The exposition function was particularly important in a text on freedom of religion or belief. It was the first full-length text providing a sustained consideration of freedom of religion under the ECHR, as opposed to in international law more generally. A lack of sympathy, or perhaps better put, a failure of judicial imagination when considering the position of atheists within a religious rights regime, materialised in Lautsi v Italy. Eweida removed the initial hurdle in making a religion or belief claim, a second hurdle is immediately encountered: the margin of appreciation

Freedom of religion or belief and employment law

This article explores the extent to which the jurisprudence of the European Convention on Human Rights has promoted the protection of freedom of religion or belief in the context of the workplace since the decision in Kokkinakis v. Greece. As a preliminary question it explores whether and why freedom of religion or belief extends to the employment relationship. It then considers two main areas where freedom of religion or belief interacts with employment: the rights of religious workers to manifest religion or belief at work, and the rights of religious organisations to impose religious requirements on their staff

L’expression des convictions religieuses au travail en Grande-Bretagne

The chapter explores the protection for the expression of religious convictions in the workplace in Great Britain under the Equality Act 2010. It considers a range of cases on matters related to the wearing of religious symbols at work; undertaking religious observance during work time; refusing to undertake work tasks because of religious conviction; and sharing religious beliefs with others

New Issues for Negotiation: Schools and Religious Freedom

The English education system has always contained large numbers of schools with a religious ethos, providing an important space for negotiation between religion, education and the secular. The focus here is on the freedom of teachers in English schools and the ways in which this has been negotiated as part of a system of protection for religious freedom for schools more generally. The various voices in the negotiation of the current settlement, including religious organisations, schools, teachers, unions and teachers themselves, are considered. Although the focus is on English schools,1 the issues are of broader significance; they speak to other legal settlements with relation to religion and education, as well as raising issues of more general concern relating to the accommodation of religion in contemporary secular law. Thus, the particular concerns in the context of English schools serve as important illustration of more general concerns regarding the ongoing negotiation of religion in modern society

Gendered Perspectives of Research Activity Symposium Report 2016

On the 15th-16th June 2016, The Forum for Research into Equality and Diversity (University of Chester), in partnership with the Centre for Diversity Policy Research and Practice (Oxford Brookes University), hosted the Gendered perspectives of research activity Symposium at the University of Chester, Chester, UK. The Symposium brought 30 representatives and researchers from across Higher Education in the UK, Europe and beyond together with sector bodies and policy drivers in order to workshop the gendered barriers and obstacles to research activity in Higher Education. This report provides a summary of the discussions and findings, as well as the key ideas, themes, questions, challenges and conclusions that came out of the two-day discussion. A further goal of the report is to seek to articulate the participants’ deliberations and considerations in order to contribute to the development of an effective strategy in the UK and beyond seeking to break down gendered barriers in relation to research activity

Age Discrimination and EU Labour Rights Law

The aim of this chapter is to provide a general account of the development and working of EU law against age discrimination in employment in which that body of law is analysed and evaluated as the expression or realisation, however complete or incomplete it may be, of an EU labour right which we can think of as ‘the EU right to age equality in employment’ or ‘the EU right against age discrimination in employment’. For this purpose, the legal framework concerning age discrimination is first described in general terms (Section 1), and attention is then focused upon three areas or aspects of that body of law, namely those of discrimination against younger workers (Section 2), discrimination against older workers in general (Section 3), and finally the special case of retirement (Section 4). In this Introduction, we suggest a method for critical analysis of this body of law which, among other things, serves to explain why we single out retirement as a special case for discussion. This paves the way for some normative evaluations which are made throughout and are added to in the Conclusion to the chapter. Our suggestion for a method of critical analysis of EU employment age discrimination law focuses on the kinds and degrees of structural change to employment arrangements which are involved in its implementation; so it is the idea of ‘EU law against age discrimination in employment and structural change’. This might also be applicable to EU employment discrimination law on other grounds