Practical Impact of EU Equality Directives in Italian and UK Employment Law

Start date: 1 January 2011
End date: 31 December 2011
Primary investigator: Alberto Lepore
Co-investigators: Professor Dagmar Schiek

Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship

The EU is founded on the principles of liberty, democracy, respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms. To underpin these principles, the EU has introduced a wide range of anti-discrimination legislation.

Different Member States have, however, implemented and interpreted this legislation in many different ways, meaning the effectiveness of EU anti-discrimination policy varies considerably across the Union.

The aim of this research project is to compare and contrast how the legislation has been implemented in two different Member States, UK and Italy, with a view to identifying areas of good practice which, if adopted in both of these and other Member States, would enhance the effectiveness of the EU's anti-discrimination law.

In order to achieve this, the researcher will investigate the practical impact of EU non-discrimination law in Italian and English employment law, using a critical comparative law methodology. The critical comparative law method endeavours to comprehend the underlying reasons (social, historical, economic, and cultural) which explain why identical EU directives have had a different impact in two different Member States.

The same method will be used to realise a wider practical application of the European antidiscrimination law in Italy and UK -- in particular, to consider if Italian non-discrimination law may be modelled by the English law, and the UK by Italian law. The final aim of the project is finding good practices in Italy and the UK to promote a widespread and a more frequent use of non-discrimination law in Europe.