Celebrating Diversity? The Implementation of the European None-Discrimination Directives in the UK

AuthorLucy Vickers
Published date01 September 2006
Date01 September 2006
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1177/1023263X0601300302
13 MJ 3 (2006) 279
CELEBRATING DIVERSITY?
THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE EUROPEAN
NONDISCRIMINATION DIRECTIVES
IN THE UK
L V*
ABSTRACT
i s arti cle wi ll look at the R egula tions i ntrodu ced in t he UK fo r the im plemen tation of the
EU non-discrimination Directives adopted in 2 000.1 It provides an overview of the new
legislation introduced in the U K to protect again discrimination on grounds of religion and
belief, and sexual orientation a s well as the proposals on age discrimination.2 ese are all
new grounds of discrimin ation, which were not previously covered in British di scrimination
law.  is article also looks br ie y at the ame ndments introduced to the Race Relations Act
and Disability Discrimin ation Act to comply with the requirements of the directives.  e
government has taken a pie cemeal approach to amending the law, and in the process has
made discrimination law in the U K hugely complicated and somewhat chaotic.  e end
result has not furthe red the overall aim of equality as far as it might.
Keywords: Non-discri mination, Equality, European law, UK
* Reader in Law, Oxford Brook es University.
1 Directive 2000 /43/EC implementing the principle of equ al treatment between pers ons irrespective of
racial or eth nic origin, [200 0[ O.J. L180/22 (the Race Directive); Direc tive 2000/78/EC e stablishing
a general fra mework for equal treat ment in employment and occ upation, [2000] O.J. L303/16 (the
Employment Equal ity Directive). Separate regu lations have been introduced in relat ion to Northern
Ireland.  e dis cussion here is based upon the l aw applying in Great Brita in.
2 At the time of writi ng, the government had only iss ued proposals for prohibiting a ge discrimination.
e Employment E quality (Age) Regulations 20 06 (S.I. 1031) were recently adopte d and entered into
force in October 20 06.

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