Eliminating Sex Discrimination at Work: Recent Court Decisions since Beijing+20

A fresh way of assessing outcomes of Section F. of the Beijing Platform for Action on Women and the economy is to track how national judicial systems are enforcing the new generation of labour laws, not only labour courts and employment tribunals but also the highest domestic judicial authorities in the form of Supreme or Constitutional Courts. This think piece asks: How have courts reacted to the profound changes of the past years concerning sex discrimination at work? Are complaints being lodged relating to one particular area of employment discrimination law? Have courts received challenges to austerity programmes—a marked characteristic of state responses to the financial and economic crisis of the late 2000s—and have their decisions strengthened or weakened worker rights to gender equality? Are international labour standards (ILS) informing judges as they assess the facts and evidence within domestic legal frameworks? And if so, which ILS influence the final outcome? What can be done to improve matters in the future?