This article considers the extent to which EC and UK equality law are moving away from liberal notions of non-discrimination towards an approach based on substantive equality or equity, not only in the field of sex discrimination but also in respect of race and disability discrimination at a time when the EC is expanding its competence in these areas. The article begins by restating some basic concepts which feature in the forensic and legislative arguments about equality. It then seeks to answer the initial question by providing a critical analysis of recent judicial and legislative developments in three areas: (1) indirect discrimination; (2) the scope of permitted positive action in favour of disadvantaged groups; and (3) the rights of part-time workers to equal treatment with full-timers, and of workers on fixed-term contracts to equal treatment with permanent workers.

This paper addresses one aspect of the European Court of Justice’s troubled case-law on the direct effect of Community directives: the so-called “incidental effect” of unimplemented directives against private parties, and its uncomfortable relationship to the basic framework of legal principles so forcefully affirmed by the Court in Faccini Dori [1994] E.C.R. I-3325. It is argued that the judgments in question can perhaps best be understood as some form of “disguised” vertical direct effect, but that any such solution merely reinforces the unsatisfactory policy quandary which besets this area of Community law.