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European Equality Law Network

European network of legal experts in gender equality and non-discrimination

Welcome!

In order to effectively promote equality and tackle discrimination in the European Union it is important to understand the effects of the EU's equal treatment and non-discrimination legislation.

The European Commission therefore set up the former network of legal experts in gender equality and the network on non-discrimination to support its work by providing independent information and advice on relevant developments in the Member States. The two networks were merged in December 2014 and are now jointly managed by Human European Consultancy, the Migration Policy Group (MPG) and Utrecht University (UU) on behalf of the European Commission.

A primary task of the European network of legal experts in gender equality and non-discrimination is to provide reliable expert information to enable the Commission to fulfil their role as guardian of the treaties. It is therefore one of the key goals of the network to disclose and gather information that is often not easily accessible due to the specificities of national legal systems or language barriers. In particular, the network provides reporting on the transposition of and compliance with the gender equality and non-discrimination directives, national court rulings as well as the impact of judgements of the Court of Justice of the European Union and, where appropriate, of the judgements of the European Court of Human Rights on national law, the role of equality bodies as well as legislative and political developments at national level.

The dissemination of general information about the acquis (communautaire and national), the latest developments at the EU level and in the countries involved in the network, remains a vital issue both for the further implementation of gender equality and non-discrimination law and its further development. Only upon the basis of the disclosure of gender equality and non-discrimination problems persisting in the Member States and other countries involved in the network, will it be possible to develop sound policies and legal rules for remedying these.

Recent focal points of the work of the network are discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation as well as gender identity/expression and sex characteristic, violence against women and domestic violence, the role of equality bodies, and the use of artificial intelligence.

On this website the network publishes information on developments in gender equality and non-discrimination law at the Member State and European level. More information can be found via our legal developments page and the individual country pages.

Go to the website of Human European Consultancy
Go to the website of Utrecht University
Go to the website of the Migration Policy Group

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