Problems with prevailing defences for the repurposing of apartheid-legacy laws to discriminate against non-citizens
In 1964, the apartheid regime in South Africa introduced a new requirement for non-citizens seeking entry into the legal profession. To practice law, non-citizens had to acquire a permanent residence...
Abortion In Northern Ireland – We Have Decriminilisation What Comes Next?
After decades of campaigning, parliamentary debates, court cases, national and international inquiries abortion was decriminalised in Northern Ireland in October 2019 by the UK government. In doing so it became...
ECOWAS Court affirms that pregnant girls in Sierra Leone have a right to equal education
Excluded from school since the civil war, orphaned by the deadly Ebola outbreak, and now quarantined by Covid-19, the judgement in the case of WAVES CWS-SL and The Republic of...
Implementing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in New Zealand
In 2007, the United Nations adopted a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It affirmed that the right to self-determination is a universal right. It belongs to indigenous peoples,...
Singaporean High Court upholds criminalisation of sexual intercourse between consenting males
On 30th March 2020, the High Court of Singapore upheld the constitutionality of Section 377A of the Singapore Penal Code, which criminalises consensual sexual intercourse between men. Broadly, the challenge...
Sharing or Caring? The Delineation of UK Parental Rights
Following the Supreme Court’s refusal to permit an appeal in Chief Constable of Leicestershire v Hextall, the Court of Appeal’s earlier judgment remains binding. In a case which brings the...
Indian Supreme Court Holds For Gender Equality in the Army
On 17th February, 2020, the Supreme Court of India (“SC”), in the case of The Secretary, Ministry of Defence v. Babita Puniya, delivered a landmark opinion, allowing Female Army Officers...
The Maya Forstater case and so-called ‘gender critical’ feminism: what was actually decided and what does it reveal about UK discrimination law?
In Forstater v CGD (2019), a think tank did not renew its contract for consultancy services with the claimant, Maya Forstater, allegedly because of Forstater expressing so-called ‘gender critical’ beliefs....
Campaigning for a Living Wage and Fair Contracts at Oxford University
Last week, the University of Oxford announced its commitment to pay the Oxford Living Wage (OLW) to all of its employees starting August 1, 2020. Currently set at £10.21/hr, the...
Women’s Equality: Paradigm and Backlash
Women’s rights seemed simple 72 years ago, when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, under the visionary leadership of Eleanor Roosevelt, launched an international regime which outlawed sex discrimination and...
The China Cables – Dehumanisation of Uyghurs and the Need for International Censure
The Uyghurs are a Turkic-minority ethnic group residing in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) of the People’s Republic of China. The Uyghur population of around 10 million residing in...
A duty to implement affirmative action/reservations for India and South Africa?
A recent Indian Supreme Court judgement, Mukesh Kumar & Another v State of Uttarakhand & Others, held that there is no right to affirmative action under Article 16(4) of the...
