Reconceptualising European Equality Law

Johanna Croon-Gestefeld is Postdoctoral Fellow at Bucerius Law School.

Reconceptualising EU equality law is a great challenge. Johanna Croon-Gestefeld approaches it from an angle that, in practice, is often veiled and not fully understood by the public. By trying to make sense of the CJEU’s equality adjudication and analysing it from a comparative-institutional point of view, she contributes to a better understanding of EU equality law. One of the strengths of this book is that she provides concrete tools and techniques for judges to carry out such a comparative institutional analysis (see, in particular, Chapter 7). This book can therefore be warmly recommended as a very worthwhile read.

• 1. Introduction I. Equality: A Fundamental Principle Based on not so Stable Fundaments II. The Need for Reconceptualising Equality Law or the Rationalist Human Rights Paradigm III. EU Law as the Laboratory of Constitutional Theory IV. The Institutional Choice Approach to EU Equality Law 2. The Notion of Equality I. Why Equality? II. What Kind of Equality? III. The Relationship of Equality and Non-discrimination 3. Equality Testing: Different Kinds of Scrutiny I. Three Standards of Scrutiny II. Traditional Interpretive Explanation III. Changing Perspectives: A Comparative Institutional Explanation IV. Conclusion 4. Differential Treatment of EU Citizens I. Non-discrimination on Grounds of Nationality: A Leitmotiv of the TFEU II. Article 18(1) TFEU: A Relative Right to Equal Treatment III. Challenges to the Equal Treatment of EU CitizensIV. Equal Treatment of EU Citizens: An Institutional Choice Reconstruction V. Conclusion 5. Reverse Discrimination I. Reverse Discrimination: Its Definition, Egalitarian Tune and Relevance II. The European Court of Justice’s Handling of Reverse Discrimination III. The Fundamental Boundaries Concern—or Institutional Choice in the Supranational Context 6. Affirmative Action for Women I. The European Union Jurisprudence II. The American Experience III. Translating the American Experience to the European Debate IV. Comparative Institutional Analysis of Affirmative Action 7. Conclusion I. Breaking down the Divides II. The Four Conceivable Relations between Equality Review and Institutional Choice III. More Coherence through Doctrinal Adaptation IV. Summary of the Thesis in Eight Points