Religion, Equality and Employment in Europe


Book Description

The management of religious and ideological diversity remains a key challenge of our time – deeply entangled with debates about the nature of liberal democracy, equality, social cohesion, minorities and nationalism, security and foreign policy. This book explores this challenge at the level of the workplace in Europe. People do not surrender their religion of belief at the gates of their workplace, nor should they be required to do so. But what are the limits of accommodating religious belief in the workplace, particularly when it clashes with other fundamental rights and freedoms? Using a comparative and socio-legal approach that emphasises the practical role of human rights, anti-discrimination law and employment protection, this book argues for an enforceable right to reasonable accommodation on the grounds of religion and belief in the workplace in Europe. In so doing, it draws on the case law of Europe's two supranational courts, three country studies –Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK – as well as developments in the US and Canada. By offering the first book-length treatment of the issue, it will be of significance to academics, students, policy-makers, business leaders and anyone interested in a deeper understanding of the potentials and limits of European and Western inclusion, freedom and equality in a multicultural context. Awarded an honourable mention from the International Academy of Comparative Law for the 2018 Canada Prize!




A Test of Faith?


Book Description

Issues of religious diversity in the workplace have become very topical and have been raised before domestic courts and the European Court of Human Rights. Examining the controversial and constantly evolving position of religion in the workplace, this collection brings together chapters by legal and social science scholars and provides a wealth of information on legal responses across Europe, Turkey and the United States to conflicts between professional and religious obligations involving employees and employers. The contributors examine how case law from the European Court of Human Rights, domestic experiences and comparative analyses can indicate trends and reveal established and innovative approaches. This multi-perspective volume will be relevant for legal practitioners, researchers, academics and policy-makers interested in human rights law, discrimination law, labour law and the intersection of law and religion.




Religious Freedom, Religious Discrimination and the Workplace


Book Description

Religious discrimination and religious freedom at work -- Seeking a definition of religion and belief -- Protecting religion at work -- Freedom of religion at work : the European dimension -- Protection against religion and belief discrimination in the UK -- Accommodating religion and belief in the workplace: North American perspectives -- Conclusion : religious freedom at work.




Religion, Equality and Employment in Europe


Book Description




Law and the Wearing of Religious Symbols in Europe


Book Description

Written in accessible language, this book provides a comprehensive analysis of a topical subject that is being widely debated across Europe. The work presents an overview of emerging case law from the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union, as well as from national courts and equality bodies in European countries, on the wearing of religious symbols in public spaces. The author persuasively argues that bans on the wearing of religious symbols constitutes a breach of an individual’s human rights and contravene existing anti-discrimination legislation. Fully updated to take account of recent case law, this second edition has been expanded to consider bans in public spaces more generally, including employment, an area where some of the recent developments have taken place.




Catholic Social Teaching and Labour Law


Book Description

Catholic Social Teaching and Labour Law explores the contribution that religious ethics makes to debates on justice in working life. Many faiths include beliefs about the significance of work to human development and the need for work to be performed under conditions that uphold dignity, equality, and solidarity . This book considers how the substantive provisions of labour law reflect prior ethical choices about how workers should be treated, and how beliefs from Catholicism influence these. This book provides a thorough account of the principles found in Catholic Social Teaching (CST), and how these impact human work and labour rights . It tests the contemporary relevance of its principles by applying them to current debates, using EU labour law as a case study. Specifically, it examines CST on the right to a just wage, the right to rest, worker participation, and equality and discrimination. The book finds that CST offers fresh insights on long-standing injustices in the labour market, such as low wages or poor working conditions, and also sheds light on emerging challenges such as ensuring rest in an era of digital connectivity. The book recognizes that tensions arise in areas where the Church's beliefs diverge from those that prevail in a secular understanding of human rights. This is particularly evident in debates relating to equality. It concludes that faith-based perspectives should be included in pluralistic dialogue on the future of labour law.




Anti-Gender Campaigns in Europe


Book Description

After decades of steady progress in terms of gender and sexual rights, several parts of Europe are facing new waves of resistance to a so-called ‘gender ideology’ or ‘gender theory’. Opposition to progressive gender equality is manifested in challenges to marriage equality, abortion, reproductive technologies, gender mainstreaming, sex education, sexual liberalism, transgender rights, antidiscrimination policies and even to the notion of gender itself. This book examines how an academic concept of gender, when translated by religious organizations such as the Roman Catholic Church, can become a mobilizing tool for, and the target of, social movements. How can we explain religious discourses about sex difference turning intro massive street demonstrations? How do forms of organization and protest travel across borders? Who are the actors behind these movements? This collection is a transnational and comparative attempt to better understand anti-gender mobilizations in Europe. It focuses on national manifestations in eleven European countries, including Russia, from massive street protests to forms of resistance such as email bombarding and street vigils. It examines the intersection of religious politics with rising populism and nationalistic anxieties in contemporary Europe.




Religion and Equality


Book Description

This volume presents an analysis of controversial events and issues shaping a rapidly changing international legal, political, and social landscape. Leading scholars and experts in law, religious studies and international relations, thoughtfully consider issues and tensions arising in contemporary debates over religion and equality in many parts of the world. The book is in two parts. The first section focuses on the anti-discrimination dimension of religious freedom norms, examining the developing law on equality and human rights and how it operates at international and national levels. The second section provides a series of case studies exploring the contemporary issue of same-sex marriage and how it affects religious groups and believers. This collection will be of interest to academics and scholars of law, religious studies, political science, and sociology, as well as policymakers and legal practitioners.




The European Union as Protector and Promoter of Equality


Book Description

This book considers the European Union as a project with a major antidiscrimination goal, which is important to remember at a time of increasing resentment against particularly exposed groups, especially migrants, refugees, members of ethnic or religious minorities and LGBTI persons. While equality and non-discrimination have long been core principles of the international community as a whole, as is made obvious by the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, they have shaped European integration in a particular way. The concepts of diversity, pluralism and equality have always been inherent in that process, the EU being virtually founded on the values of equality and non-discrimination. The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU contains the most modern and extensive catalogue of prohibited grounds of discrimination, supplementing the catalogue enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights. EU law has given new impulses to antidiscrimination law both within Europe and beyond. The contributions to this book focus on how effective and credible the EU has been in combatting discrimination inside and outside Europe. The authors present different (mostly legal) aspects of that topic and examine them from various intra- and extra-European angles.




The European Convention on Human Rights and the Employment Relation


Book Description

The accession by the European Union to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) has opened up new possibilities in terms of the constitutional recognition of fundamental rights in the EU. In the field of employment law it heralds a new procedure for workers and trade unions to challenge EU law against the background of the ECHR. In theoretical terms this means that EU law now goes beyond recognition of fundamental rights as mere general principles of EU law, making the ECHR the 'gold standard' for fundamental (social) rights. This publication of the Transnational Trade Union Rights Working Group focuses on the EU and the interplay between the Strasbourg case law and the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), analysing the relevance of the ECHR for the protection of workers' rights and for the effective enjoyment of civil and political rights in the employment relation. Each chapter is written by a prominent European human rights expert and analyses the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), and also looks at the equivalent international labour standards within the Council of Europe (in particular the (Revised) European Social Charter), the International Labour Organization (ILO) (in particular the fundamental rights conventions) and the UN Covenants (in particular the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights) and the interpretation of these instruments by competent organs. The authors also analyse the ways in which the CJEU has acknowledged the respective ECHR articles as 'general principles' of EU law and asks whether the Lisbon Treaty will also warrant a reassessment of the way it has treated conflicts between these 'general principles' and the so-called 'fundamental freedoms'.