Discrimination and its sanctions – Symbolic vs effective remedies in European anti-discrimination law / Collective actions under European anti-discrimination law

This is the nineteenth issue of the bi-annual European Anti-Discrimination Law Review. The Law Review provides an overview of the latest developments in European anti-discrimination law (the information reflects, as far as possible, the state of affairs as of 15 June 2014).

Two in-depth analytical articles on topics of relevance for EU anti-discrimination law are included in the Review. First, Romanița Iordache, expert for Romania in the European Network of Legal Experts in the non-discrimination field (‘the Network’), and Iustina Ionescu, a practising lawyer in Romania with specific expertise in anti-discrimination law, provide an analysis of the Court of Justice of the EU’s case law regarding requirements for sanctions provided by national law in discrimination cases, following in particular the Asociaţia Accept ruling (C-81/12). Both authors were directly involved in bringing and defending the Asociaţia Accept case.

Lilla Farkas, ground-coordinator for race and ethnic origin in the Network and a PhD candidate at the European University Institute in Florence, then examines EU law provisions related to collective actions in discrimination cases and compares the national legal frameworks with regard to collective actions in the 33 countries covered by the Network.

In addition, the Law Review contains updates on legal policy developments at the European level and updates from the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, the European Court of Human Rights and the Committee for Social Rights of the Council of Europe. At the national level, the latest developments in non-discrimination law in the EU Member States, the three accession candidate countries (the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Iceland and Turkey) and the EEA countries (Liechtenstein and Norway) can be found in the section on ‘News from the Member States, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway’.