INTRODUCTION Purpose of the present guide The purpose of this guide is to provide legislators and advocates with guidance on the development of comprehensive anti-discrimination laws. It seeks to consolidate and synthesize international legal standards – as set out in the United Nations human rights conventions and the binding interpretations of these conventions by the relevant bodies – and to provide clear, accessible guidance on the necessary scope and content of these laws if States are to meet their international obligations. It also brings together good practice examples from across the globe, in an effort to exemplify these standards and elaborate the elements of law necessary to ensure their effectiveness. Inevitably, in taking this approach, the guide contains a discussion of States’ obligations and duties and the requirements of international law. These obligations themselves derive from instruments of international law that States chose to develop and adopt, in recognition of the need to eliminate discrimination in order to achieve their ambition of tackling inequality. The central object and purpose of these international legal instruments is to create societies in which all can participate equally. Thus, while framing the adoption of comprehensive anti-discrimination law as an obligation, the aim in the guide is also to provide a map for States seeking to meet their ambitions and commitments as regards achieving an equal world. Right to non-discrimination in international law Following the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a range of binding international human rights instruments were adopted, with the prohibition of discrimination being a central feature throughout. Both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights prohibit discrimination in the enjoyment of all of the rights that they guarantee, while the former also provides a free-standing, autonomous right to non-discrimination and the right of all persons to equal recognition before the law, and equal protection and benefit of the law. Beyond those two conventions, the right to non-discrimination is central to each of the other international human rights treaties. Specific conventions have been adopted on the elimination of racial discrimination and discrimination against women and on the rights of persons with disabilities, while treaties ranging in focus from the prohibition of torture to the rights of the child each contain non-discrimination provisions. Indeed, the rights to equality and non-discrimination have been recognized as “the cornerstones of all human rights”,4 sitting at the absolute core of the human rights protections enjoyed by minorities and other marginalized or stigmatized groups. Evolving understandings of the rights to equality and nondiscrimination In the early years of international human rights practice, the rights to equality and non-discrimination were understood as tantamount to a right to be treated equally. At the heart of this understanding was the notion of comparison – that individuals should not be treated differently when compared with others in a similar situation, on the basis of certain important characteristics or “grounds”. All individuals, it was understood, should be treated alike, irrespective of their race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Over time, as new human rights instruments were adopted, and international practice was influenced by developments at the national level, understandings of the rights to equality and non-discrimination have evolved. In essence, States have elaborated and codified the elements of law necessary to give effect to their central, overarching commitment to eliminate all forms of discrimination. While it is beyond the scope of this publication to trace these developments in detail, a brief discussion of some key trends serves to demonstrate why and how both States and international bodies have concluded that it is only through the adoption of 4 Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, general comment No. 6 (2018), para. 4. xxi