Call for Articles
Dossier “The technical legal construction of antidiscrimination law: contributions to the development of its concepts, techniques and normative categories” (Sept./ 2023)
Dossier Direito & Práxis Journal, September 2023
Editors Roger Raupp Rios (Unisinos), Daniel Borillo (University of Paris II) and Lawrence Estivalet de Mello (UFBA)
In several fields and fronts, struggles for the construction of fair and egalitarian societies are spreading. Thanks to the contestation of various kinds of discriminations by many social movements, significant achievements have been registered. It is exemplified, among others, by the dismantling of racial segregation regimes, the enactment of international anti-discrimination legal instruments, and the recognition of rights of historically discriminated individuals and groups. This trajectory is marked by renewed challenges and not only remains open but is increasingly confronted by the dramatic intensification of inequalities, by the profusion of the politics of hatred and enmity, by attacks on democracy, and by the resurgence of manifestations of discrimination.
Among the multiple knowledges, experiences and practices activated along this path is antidiscrimination law, understood as an area of specialized legal practice and knowledge aimed at realizing the right to equality. As it develops, understanding its legal frameworks, concepts, categories and principles requires consolidation and deepening. It is pointed out by the technical-legal issues raised by constitutional and legal norms on equality, the disputes over the application of international and inter-American conventions against various forms of discrimination, the clashes in the case lawand in legislative activity, and the growing specialized legal literature.
As occurs in all fields of knowledge and legal practice, the contextualization, analysis, understanding and critique of antidiscrimination law require the input of various perspectives, disciplines and approaches: history, philosophy and social sciences, among other fields of knowledge, have been and cannot be ignored in this task. To this end, this journal, alongside the efforts of many others, also seeks to contribute.
Within this broad framework, the contribution sought by this dossier is specific: to turn the attention to the technical-legal aspects of antidiscrimination law, whose understanding, deepening, and development are necessary and increasingly urgent. In fact, legal practice shows how challenging it is to adequately understand the anti-discrimination legal categories, whose legal language has the task of responding to the political, social, and cultural demands of the struggles against discrimination. To this end, it is necessary to increase reflection, through qualified spaces and dissemination of specific and specialized technical-legal production on the concepts, categories, principles, and issues of antidiscrimination law.
In this way, the dossier aims to encourage debate and analysis of the content, potential and legal limits of anti-discrimination law, both to develop its interpretation and contribute to the consolidation and maturation of this specific legal field (as, for example, occurs in the technical-legal categorization of the phenomenon of intersectional discrimination as multiple discrimination), or to offer proposals that, by perfecting legal thought and technique, collaborate in confronting inequality and overcoming discrimination (as, for example, the evolution of affirmative action policies regarding the identification of their beneficiaries is registered). It is a question of responding to the task of expanding and strengthening the horizon of meaning of the technical-legal thinking and practice of antidiscrimination law by means of an analytical-descriptive examination of antidiscrimination law that is informed by a critical-valorative stance.
In view of this, this public call seeks to encourage and stimulate reflection and the production of studies that deal with concepts, categories, principles and issues relevant to the technical-legal development of anti-discrimination law broadly considered (national and international legislation, international, national and comparative jurisprudential frameworks, specialized legal literature, concrete legal issues), from the following thematic nuclei:
- legal concept of discrimination in its various themes and aspects, such as: analysis of the constitutive elements of its legal definition; its content and legal effectiveness; legal understanding of institutional, systemic and structural discrimination; prohibition of discrimination, duties of reasonable accommodation and universal design;
- direct and indirect discrimination in its various themes and aspects, such as: understanding, distinctions and hypotheses; modalities of direct and indirect discrimination recognized by laws and regulations and former court decisions;
- legal responses to discrimination in its various themes and aspects, such as: legislative measures and public policies to prevent, repress and repair discrimination; measures to promote equality and the right to difference; institutional design and implementation of affirmative action;
- prohibited grounds of discrimination in their various themes and aspects, such as: nature of their enumeration; justifications and requirements for their adoption; definition and interpretation of the criteria themselves; scope of identity and fundamental choices; modalities of intersection between the various criteria;
- analysis of the case law and legislative evolution related to antidiscrimination issues, such as: present trends and dominant reasoning in the judicial reasoning and legislative debates;
- Strategic litigation in antidiscrimination law, involving topics such as: impact and contribution of strategic litigation to the development of antidiscrimination law; legal repercussions of the judgment of emblematic cases; reception
- the development of antidiscrimination law from the relationship between the various legal systems and comparative antidiscrimination law, involving themes such as: dialogue of national and international courts; reception of public international human rights law in national antidiscrimination law; repercussion of judgments and legislative frameworks of foreign law;
- the implementation of the right to non-discrimination and the development of civil procedural law, involving themes such as: concept, categories and procedural issues pertinent to the right to non-discrimination, such as adequate representation, procedural legitimacy, amicus curiae, standing to sue, jurisdiction and general theory and specific themes of evidential law (such as: evidential burden, licit and illicit evidence)
- implementation of antidiscrimination law, relationship with other areas of knowledge and legal practice, such as: antidiscrimination legal content and its requirements and limits in private law as a whole, in environmental law, in social security law, in criminal law and criminal procedure, in public law in general, especially in administrative law, in the right to education;
- Identification and analysis of emerging issues and new challenges for antidiscrimination law, at local, national, foreign and global levels;
Submission and deadlines:
Proposals must be sent to dossieantidiscriminacao@gmail.com by November 15, 2022 [NEW DEADLINE] and, in addition to complying with the general submission guidelines indicated by this journal, need to contain:
∙ Title: subtitle
∙ Name, e-mail, qualification, institutional affiliations of the authors, e-mail and ORCID.
∙ An abstract of no more than 1,200 words clearly indicating the object of the work, its hypotheses, the method that will be used in developing the research, the expected conclusions, and the contribution of the research to the field. The word count of the abstract does not include possible references
∙ A tentative structure of topics in the text, including a list of possible cases, experiences or theoretical proposals that will be analyzed.
Receipt of papers is restricted to one paper per author (even if co-authored).
Proposals accepted for development will receive feedback from the organizers in order to receive the full paper by April 30, 2023 and making revisions indicated by June 30, 2023.
Timeline:
November 15, 2022 [NEW DEADLINE] — Deadline for authors to submit paper proposals.
November 30, 2022 — Deadline for organizers to communicate decisions on received proposals.
March 1, 2023 — Deadline for authors to submit the complete version of the articles.
April 30, 2023 — Deadline for organizers to get back to authors with comments.
June 30, 2023 — Deadline for authors to return with final versions of their papers.
September 2023 — Publication of the dossier!
