A right to equality and non-discrimination is widely seen as fundamental in democratic legal systems. But failure to identify the human interest that equality aims to uphold reinforces the argument of those who attack it as morally empty or unsubstantiated and weakens its status as a fundamental human right. This book argues that an understanding of the human interest which equality aims to uphold is feasible within the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the European Court of Justice (ECJ). In comparing the evolution of the prohibition of discrimination in the case-law of both Courts, Charilaos Nikolaidis demonstrates that conceptual convergence within the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the EU on the issue of equality is not as far as it might appear initially. While the two bodies of equality law are extremely divergent as to the requirements they impose, their interpretation by the international judiciary might be properly analysed under a common light to emphasise the substantive dimension of equality in European Human Rights law. The book will be of great use and interest to scholars and students of human rights, discrimination law, and European politics.

This book explores the concept of a substantive right to equality and considers the underlying rationale behind the right to equality and non-discrimination within the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the EU. The book sets out a theoretical basis for the right to substantive equality before undertaking a careful analysis of the jurisprudence of both the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice in order to examine how the two Courts have approached the question through their case-law. The historical evolution of the prohibition of discrimination in the two legal orders is traced in order to demonstrate how the human interest safeguarded by a right to equality has developed and continues to develop within the jurisprudence of the Strasbourg and Luxembourg Courts. The book demonstrates how the right to substantive equality is becoming increasingly relevant.It shows how, despite the profound differences between the scope of ECHR and EU equality law, the two Courts have been willing to move beyond the apparent limitations of the written legal framework in several instances with a view to extending the personal and the material scope of what appears to be an emerging human right to equality.