Legal Perspectives on Equal Treatment and Non-Discrimination

This remarkable collection of essays presents the proceedings of a conference held at Lund University in December 2000, sponsored by the Norma Research Programme, which studies normative patterns and their development in the legal regulation of employment, housing, family and social security from a European integration perspective.

Important areas of discussion include the following, among many other topics:

• indirect discrimination
• defining the protected group
• pregnancy discrimination
• positive action
• flexibilisation of working life
• rights of contract workers
• reasonable adjustments for workers with disabilities

  In an interesting outcome, the discussion reveals that an analysis in terms of discrimination adds to our understanding of law even in areas that are not generally articulated in such terms. In the wake of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, and in the light of the distinct possibility that Europe may be moving toward a `Single Non-Discrimination/Equal Treatment Act', this is a fruitful point of view--one of many insights that make this book a rich mine of material with which practitioners, academics, and other interested professionals can further the development of the equal treatment principle in European law.