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This chapter introduces the measures of working conditions and labor rights that are the focus of the book and shows how labor conditions changed in the late 20th century. The key working conditions are pay, hours of work, and workplace health and safety. The four key labor rights (emphasized in policy discussions by international organizations) are freedom of association, nondiscrimination, abolition of forced labor, and reduction of child labor. Evidence presented in this chapter shows that measures of these working conditions and labor rights improved during the late 20th century, a period of increased international economic integration. The data also show that countries that are open to international trade have superior labor conditions.

This chapter considers the relationship between nondiscrimination rules and supply-side incentives to invest in infrastructure. It frames and evaluates the oft-made claim that government-imposed commons management will significantly impair incentives to invest in infrastructure. First, it briefly discusses typical assumptions underlying this claim. Unfortunately, tragedy is often assumed rather than demonstrated. A few of the powerful rhetorical devices/analytical heuristics that influence modern debates about nondiscrimination rules are addressed. Next, the chapter considers a series of issues that require context-specific attention in order to evaluate the relationship between commons management and incentives to invest. It ends with two examples of situations where a conflict between commons management and supply-side incentives arises.

This chapter applies infrastructure theory to the particularly contentious “network neutrality” debate. At the heart of this debate is whether the Internet infrastructure will continue to be managed as a commons. Ultimately, the outcome of this debate may very well determine whether the Internet continues to operate as a mixed infrastructure that supports widespread user production of commercial, public, and social goods, or whether it evolves into a commercial infrastructure optimized for the production and delivery of commercial outputs. The chapter criticizes the current framing of the debate as well as the recent rule enacted by the Federal Communications Commission. It then proposes and defends a nondiscrimination rule that reflects the core commons management principle discussed throughout this book.

This Chapter further critiques DSB decisions by considering a mechanism to share examination workloads among national patent offices, and the EU’s Database Directive, which seeks to expand protection globally via a reciprocity provision. This allows examination of TRIPS provisions that might be seen as structural: the national treatment provision, and the most favoured nation principle (MFN). Both principles have long been part of the GATT. National treatment offers an appealing approach to the regulation of trade in knowledge-intensive products. But the Chapter questions the wisdom of applying MFN to intellectual property. The Chapter also criticises the interpretation of Article 27, which prohibits certain forms of discrimination in the patent field, as structural. These different provisions must be interpreted in a manner that reflects their roles in protecting the integrity of the international intellectual property, trade, and patent systems. Challenged laws should receive different levels of scrutiny under different provisions, and the distinction between de facto and de iure discrimination must be recognised. The Chapter also discusses other TRIPS provisions, and priority provisions incorporated from the Paris Convention, which have structural dimensions. And it suggests that TRIPS contains provisions that serve as functional substitutes for national autonomy guarantees found in GATT.

This chapter investigates whether two countervailing forces—ideological commitments to equal treatment and the potential electoral leverage of the Muslim vote—can nevertheless lead to representational parity. It examines how parties' commitments to equal treatment and nondiscrimination on the one hand and the potential importance of the Muslim vote on the other correlate with inclusion outcomes across countries. Across the cities and parties in Austria, Belgium, Germany, and Great Britain, the Left is indeed much more tightly wedded to principles of equal treatment than is the Right, but proactive rhetoric in this domain does not predict inclusiveness. Though, within countries, center-left parties are always more likely to recruit Muslim candidates than are center-right parties, this is not true across countries; parties only feature significant shares of Muslim candidates when local Muslim electorates can deliver substantial votes.

Chapter 10 concerns the plurilateral agreement on Government Procurement, one of two plurilateral agreements in force. This plurilateral agreement only binds a subset of the total WTO membership. This chapter reviews the requirement that when purchasing goods for their own government consumption (and what qualifies as this), signatories must do so on a nondiscriminatory basis from supplies originating in other signatories of the GPA Agreement. Further it discusses the transparency requirements and the methods for enforcing the GPA.

This chapter is dedicated to the discussion of disciplines imposed on state trading enterprises (e.g., state entities through which international trade is being channeled). Article XVII of GATT does not define what is considered an STE, instead, most of the negotiating record shows a greater concern for the obligations imposed upon them so the chapter examines the practice and case law that has provided some level of clarification. Next the obligations of nondiscrimination, acting with ‘commercial considerations’ and affording ‘adequate opportunities to compete’ are discussed.

This chapter addresses the question of how something that seemed unthinkable even in the early 2000s – LGBT inclusion at Christian colleges and universities – has suddenly become possible. Specifically, the chapter provides an historical overview of three currents of the LGBT movement – the emergence of the LGBT rights movement as a force in U.S. politics, the spread of Gay-Straight Alliances across U.S. schools, and the inroads by LGBT advocates into religious denominations – and argues that the increasing openness of some Christian denominations to LGBT equality in particular has emboldened LGBT and allied students working to advance LGBT equality on Christian college and university campuses. The chapter then provides descriptive statistical data on the presence of LGBT groups and inclusive nondiscrimination statements across all Christian colleges and universities in the United States. The chapter shows that it is when Christian colleges and universities are affiliated with Christian denominations that maintain a historical body of social justice teachings that they are most inclusive of LGBT students.

This chapter explores the robustness of the Social and Economic Rights Fulfillment (SERF) Index to assumptions and choices made in its construction. More particularly, it addresses the following five questions: Does the observed best practice with regard to a given substantive social and economic right reflect prioritizing that right over the other rights? Are the estimated Achievement Possibilities Frontiers robust to alternative estimation techniques? How do a country’s structural characteristics and historical policy legacy affect its ability to fulfill social and economic rights? How robust is the SERF Index to alternative indicators of resource availability? Finally, how can the SERF Index be modified to take into account the principle of nondiscrimination?

The American policy landscape vis-à-vis racial profiling is multifaceted and complex, but a pervasive theme is that there is little effective policy that prevents police from racially profiling. Explicit bans cannot prevent discriminatory judgments of suspicion that are based on implicit race-crime stereotypes, and because racial discrimination is so taboo in contemporary America, there is a de facto ban in most places. The judiciary has been very permissive of profiling in pedestrian and vehicle stops and searches, requiring only that a legal, articulable pretext be provided. The federal ban on profiling exempts counterterrorism. State laws typically require data collection (although often not analysis or follow-up) but include no remedial measures. Most of the policy traction appears to be occurring at the agency level, with police executives taking initiative to train officers in nondiscrimination, although there is little evidence to date that the types of trainings employed are effective.

This chapter studies the “winning streak” of the LGBT movement against the Religious Right during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Between 1997 and 2003, more campaigns than ever before used tactics such as voter identification, large-scale use of volunteers, and narrow messaging. Campaign victories had a “domino effect” on other areas, such as increased lesbian and gay visibility in mainstream media, the passage of numerous state hate-crimes legislation, and passage of nondiscrimination legislation. The chapter analyzes events that happened in Michigan during this period as a case study to demonstrate the use of campaign tactics in “battleground” states.

This chapter discusses the key human rights challenges facing development agencies in India. It begins by defining what a rights-based approach to development is. It then lists the major issues of human rights brought up by UN agencies and NGOs. It lists the official ways that UN agencies build rights into their programming, including women’s rights, political participation, nondiscrimination, access to justice, and the right to information. It concludes that the vital rights challenges can be aided by development agencies, but only if their policies are correctly conceived and implemented.

This chapter examines the health care reform issue with significant public support: the prohibition on denying coverage for preexisting conditions, especially those identified by genetic testing. The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (GINA) is designed to prohibit the improper use of genetic information in health insurance and employment. GINA prohibits group health plans and health insurers from denying coverage to a healthy individual, or from charging that person a higher premium based solely on a genetic predisposition to developing a disease in the future. The broader health care reform of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requires the private health insurance market to provide coverage for individuals with preexisting conditions. The chapter considers the CaSE model as a framework for representing causation and then applies it to the case of genetic diseases. It concludes by asking whether preexisting conditions—genetic or otherwise—should be grounds for denying someone health insurance.

Chapter 3 introduces the distinction between nondiscrimination rights and substantive human rights as alternative value-protection paradigms. It defines and describes the varieties of nondiscrimination doctrine as they have developed in international human rights law. It compares the various approaches to the nondiscrimination right, observes weaknesses in the common doctrine, and proposes some improvements to rationalize the doctrine. Included in the discussion are the two ways of value protection; the international legal definition of discrimination, including the concepts of similar situations, legitimate aim, and proportionality; the contextual figures in discrimination analysis, including prohibited grounds, the protected interest, the individual and social consequences of discrimination, the source of the threat, and the intention to discriminate.

Chapter 4 evaluates the extent of the equivalence between nondiscrimination rights and substantive rights for protecting the same or similar fundamental interests. It observes that each approach has advantages and disadvantages that are absent from the other, and describes how they can be used in a complementary fashion to enhance protection of an important interest. In the course of the discussion, it analyzes the arguments for treating the nondiscrimination right as a ius cogens norm, and explores the relationship between group rights and nondiscrimination rights. The discussion includes the extent and limits of equivalence, as well as substitutability of (and limits on that substitutability of) nondiscrimination and substantive rights claims.