Equality and Non-discrimination

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IWRAW-Asia Pacific and the Center for Women's Global Leadership are organizing a side event to the 2009 Commission on the Status of Women meeting in New York, on Monday, March 9th at 12pm on the 2nd level of the Church Center building.  Topics include: Highlighting the achievements and...

Country: 
United Kingdom
Working Group(s) / Area(s) of Work: 
Strategic Litigation
OP-ICESCR

Sally Chapman purchased a piece of land in 1985 with the intention of living on it in a caravan. She was refused permission to live on the land by the District Council and was given 15 months to vacate it. She claimed her rights under the European Convention on Human Rights had been violated, including Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) and Article 14 (violation of prohibition of discrimination). Following an invitation of the President of the Court (according to Art 36 § 2), the European Roma Rights Centre intervened as a third party in the written procedure.

The claimants filed a tutela action against several state institutions alleging failure to comply with their mission of protecting displaced persons and to effectively respond to the displaced’s requests related to housing, access to production projects, health care, education and humanitarian aid.

Centro de Derechos Económicos y Sociales (CDES), on behalf of the General Secretary of Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores del Ministerio de Salud [National Union of Health Ministry Workers] and the workers represented by the union, filed a report with the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR) against the State of Ecuador.

The Chilean Health Ministry issued a decree ordering free medical treatment and tests for all sexually transmitted diseases, including the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). However, the decree was not complied with in the case of HIV. Given this situation, the organization Vivo Positivo, sponsored by Clínica de Acciones de Interés Público de la Universidad Diego Portales, filed three amparo actions requesting the East Metropolitan Health Service and the Health Ministry to comply with the decree.

Between December 27, 1995 and September 30, 1999, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) received numerous petitions filed by retired persons and several non-governmental organizations.  The petitions claimed violations of the rights to effective judicial remedy, due legal process, property, social security, health, well-being and equal protection, which are enshrined in the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man (ADRDM) and in the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR).

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) received a petition in favor of Dilcia Yean and Violeta Bosica against the Dominican Republic for denying them the Dominican nationality although they were born there. The petitioners claimed that, since their nationality was not acknowledged, the girls were exposed to the imminent threat of being expelled from the country and, lacking an identity document, could not attend school.

The Yakye Axa community, a Paraguayan indigenous community belonging to the Lengua Enxet Sur people, filed a complaint with the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR) alleging Paraguay had failed to acknowledge its right to property over ancestral land. Given its impossibility to solve the case, the Commission referred it to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

The appellant Irma Sparks, a single black mother with two children relied on social assistance and had lived in public housing for ten years. She was given one month's notice that she would be evicted with no reason given. Public housing was exempted from the security of tenure provisions of the Residential Tenancies Act.  Sparks alleged the legislation discriminated on the enumerated ground of race and sex and on the “analogous” grounds of marital/family status (single mothers) and poverty/income.