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15 Int'l J. Discrimination & L. 3 (2015)

handle is hein.journals/ijdisclw15 and id is 1 raw text is: I1JDL Editorial IJO International journal of Discrimination and the Law (lI)Iegitim ate 2015, Vol. 15(1-2)3-10 K© The Author(s) 2014 differential treatm ent Reprints and permission: sagepub.co.ul</journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1358229114558389 jdi.sagepub.com OSAGE Elise Muir Exploring the limits of equality law Since the expiry of the transposition period of the Racial and Employment Equality Direc- tives,1 national non-discrimination regimes have considerably developed. The past 10 years have been marked by the broadening of the scope of European Union (EU) non- discrimination law,2 efforts to consolidate the definition of key legal concepts3 as well as the constitutionalization of this area of law.4 Accession by the EU to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) in 2010 as well as the prospect of accession to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) intensifies the relevance of international law in the fight against discrimination across Europe. Domestically, legislation, court judgments and equality bodies are building on this EU and international law framework, thereby expanding the reach of non-discrimination law. In recent years however, some member states at the Council have proven reluctant to extend the scope of EU non-discrimination legislation any further.5 The proposal for a direc- tive to implement the principle ofequal treatment between persons irrespective ofreligion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation beyond employment and occupation to access to goods and services is still stuck in the pipelines of the EU legislative process.6 One of the common concerns expressed by some member states and reflecting objections raised by employers and service providers is that non-discrimination law has gone far enough or may actually have gone too far already, by imposing constraints on public and private actors. This special issues seeks to explore the underpinnings of this concern through a detailed analysis of the use of exceptions and justifications to the prohibition of discrimination under the existing provisions of EU law and the UNCRPD.9 For the purposes of this vol- ume, 'exceptions' are situations that are excluded from the scope of non-discrimination law and where different treatment is thus allowed, whilst 'justifications' are situations Faculty of Law, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands Corresponding author: Elise Muir, Faculty of Law, Maastricht University, PO Box 616,6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands. Email: elise.muir@maastrichtuniversity.nl

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