Prohibition of Discrimination

Page 1 of 7

Filter category

Feature post image

When Decolonization Meets Human Rights: CERD’s 2025 Decision on the Chagos Agreement

December 18, 2025

Debates on the Chagos Archipelago have long been framed through questions of territorial sovereignty and decolonization, largely as a bilateral matter between the UK and Mauritius. Human rights dimensions have not been absent, as Chagossian claims have appeared in domestic courts, before the European Court of Human Rights, and in several UN mechanisms, but they have not always been central to the diplomatic processes surrounding negotiations. Against this backdrop, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination’s 2 December 2025 decision (see press release), adopted under its Early Warning and Urgent Action Procedure, adds  a distinct human rights interpretative layer at a crucial moment: the 22 May UK–Mauritius Agreement (the UK Mauritius Agreement) still awaits domestic ratification and Chagossian organizations in Mauritius, the UK and Seychelles have expressed opposition to the treaty. Chaggosians argue that they were not consulted and that its terms would perpetuate, rather than remedy, the long-standing denial of their right to return.

Read more

Can the ECtHR Serve as an Alternative Venue for Inter-State Racial Discrimination Claims? Ukraine and the Netherlands v. Russia and the Strategic Value of Multi-Forum Litigation

September 10, 2025

On 9 July 2025, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR, the Court) issued its long-awaited merits judgment in Ukraine and the Netherlands v. Russia, a nearly 500-page ruling of unprecedented scale in the Court’s history, which also drew an exceptional number of third-party interventions (discussed here, here, and here). The proceedings consolidated three…

Read more

ECtHR’s Veil of Ignorance: Intersectionality and Indirect Discrimination in the Belgian Headscarf Ban in School

September 13, 2024

On April 9th, 2024, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) delivered its judgment concerning Belgium’s Hijab (Headscarf) ban on wearing visible religious symbols in Schools. The Court, following its previous notorious trial of SAS v. France, continued to allow the creeping erosion of the right to manifest religion under Article 9 of the European…

Read more

ICJ Delivers Advisory Opinion on the Legality of Israel’s Occupation of Palestinian Territories

July 20, 2024

Yesterday, the International Court of Justice delivered its groundbreaking advisory opinion on the Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. (The Court’s opinion and all of the individual opinions of the judges are available here.) The bottom line of the AO is that the…

Read more

State and Corporate Homophobia: A Commentary on the Olivera Fuentes v. Peru case

August 21, 2023

On 11 April 2023, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (“the Court”) published its long-awaited ruling in the Olivera Fuentes v. Peru case. The decision holds personal significance to Crissthian Olivera, a pioneering defender of LGBTIQ+ rights in Latin America, as it was the culmination of a 19-year journey to deliver justice following discrimination he…

Read more