Book Launch: Foundations of Indirect Discrimination Law (August 2018)

Edited by Hugh Collins and Tarun Khaitan

Book Launch, co-hosted with the Asian Law Centre and the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies

Foundations of Indirect Discrimination Law

Edited by Hugh Collins and Tarun Khaitan

Thursday 23 August 2018: 5:30pm–8:00pm at Melbourne Law School

About the event

The seminar commenced at 5:45pm with a panel discussion by Professor Karen Farquharson, Professor Cordelia Fine, Professor Beth Gaze, Dr Dale Smith and Associate Professor Tarun Khaitan. The panel was chaired by Associate Professor Anna Chapman.

It was followed at 7pm by a launch by The Honourable Michael Kirby AC CMG of the new book edited by Professor Hugh Collins and Associate Professor Tarun Khaitan, "Foundations of Indirect Discrimination Law." Those unable to attend the panel discussion are also welcome to join the book launch.

About the book

Indirect discrimination (or disparate impact) concerns the application of the same rule to everyone, even though that rule significantly disadvantages one particular group in society. Ever since its recognition by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1971, liberal democracies around the world have grappled with the puzzle that it can sometimes be unfair and wrong to treat everyone equally. The law's regulation of private acts that unintentionally (but disproportionately) harm vulnerable groups has remained extremely controversial, especially in the United States and the United Kingdom. In original essays in this volume, leading scholars of discrimination law from North America and Europe explore the various facets of the law on indirect discrimination, interrogating its foundations, history, legitimacy, purpose, structure, and relationship with other legal concepts. The collection provides the first international work devoted to this vital area of the law that seeks both to prevent unfair treatment and to transform societies.