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Gender Equality, Legal Mobilization, and Feminism in a Multilevel European System

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 July 2013

Dia Anagnostou  and
Susan Millns
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Canadian Journal of Law and Society / La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société , Volume 28 , Special Issue 2: Gender Equality, Legal Mobilization, and Feminism in a Multilevel European System , August 2013 , pp. 115 - 131
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Copyright © Canadian Law and Society Association / Association Canadienne Droit et Société 2012 

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References

2 The European Community is now named the European Union, following the Lisbon Treaty that entered into force in December 2009.

3 The European Economic Community became known as the European Community with the adoption of the Treaty of Maastricht, which came into force in November 1993.

4 Hoskyns, Catherine, Integrating Gender—Women, Law and Politics in the EU (London: Verso, 1996)Google Scholar; Mazey, Sonia, “The EU and Women’s Rights: From the Europeanization of National Agendas to the Nationalization of a European Agenda?” Journal of European Public Policy 5/1 (1998): 131–52 at 131–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 On the factors that enabled feminists to exert pressure on the EC Commission in the 1970s, as well as on the receptivity of the Commission to their demands, see Sonia Mazey, “The EU and Women’s Rights,” 138.

6 Sonia Mazey, “The EU and Women’s Rights,” 134.

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10 MacKinnon, Catharine A., Feminism Unmodified: Discourses on Life and Law (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987)Google Scholar; MacKinnon, Catharine A. Toward a Feminist Theory of the State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989)Google Scholar; Smart, Carol, Feminism and the Power of Law (London: Routledge, 1989).Google Scholar

11 Sonia Mazey, “The EU and Women’s Rights,” 134.

12 The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union was introduced following the Lisbon Treaty in 2009 to replace the Treaty of Rome (or European Community Treaty) of 1957.

13 Council Directive 75/117/EEC of 19 February 1975, OJ L45/19.

14 Council Directive 79/7/EEC of 19 December 1978, OJ L6/24.

15 Case 43/75, Gabrielle Defrenne v. Société anonyme belge de navigation aérienne Sabena [1976] ECR 455.

16 Council Directive 76/207/EEC of 9 February 1976, OJ L39/40. The ECJ/CJEU decides on a statute-by-statute basis whether EU law creates direct effect, taking into account the clarity and specificity of the particular statute. EU regulations are directly applicable at the national level, while EU directives only sometimes create direct effects if they are sufficiently clear, precise, and unconditional (Case 26/62) Van Gend en Loos [1963] ECR 13). See Alter, Karen, “The EU’s Legal System and Domestic Policy: Spillover or Backlash?” International Organization 54/3 (2000): 489–518 at 496.Google Scholar

17 See Cichowski, Rachel, “Women’s Rights, the European Court, and Supranational Constitutionalism,” Law and Society Review 38/3 (2004): 489–512 at 501–503.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 See Barnard, Catherine, “Gender Equality in the EU: A Balance Sheet,” in The EU and Human Rights, ed. Alston, Philip with Bustelo, Mara R., and Heenan, James (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 215–79Google Scholar; and the special issues on EU gender equality law of Feminist Legal Studies (2006, issue 10) and the European Law Journal (2007, issue 13/2).

19 Council Directive 2002/73/EC, Equal Treatment Directive [2002] OJ L269/15. See also Tobler, Christa, Indirect Discrimination. A Case Study into the Development of the Legal Concept of Indirect Discrimination in EC Law (Antwerp and Oxford: Intersentia, 2005).Google Scholar

20 Council Directive 2004/113/EC.

21 Pollack, Mark and Hafner-Burton, Emilie, “Mainstreaming Gender in the European Union,” Journal of European Public Policy 7/3 (2000): 432–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22 Millns, Susan, “Gender Equality, Citizenship and the EU’s Constitutional Future,” European Law Journal, 13/2 (2007): 218–37.Google Scholar

23 Bell, Mark, Anti-Discrimination Law and the European Union (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)Google Scholar; Bell, Mark, “The Principle of Equal Treatment: Widening and Deepening” in The Evolution of EU Law, 2nd ed., eds. Craig, P. and De Búrca, G. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 611–39Google Scholar; Chopin, Isabelle, “The Starting Line Group: A Harmonised Approach to Fight Racism and to Promote Equal Treatment,” European Journal of Migration and Law 1 (1999): 111–29Google Scholar at 113.

24 Council Directive 2000/43/EC, [2000] OJ L303/16.

25 Council Directive 2000/78/EC, [2000] OJ L303/16.

26 Council Directive 2004/113/EC, [2004] OJ L373/37.

27 European Parliament and European Council Directive 2006/54/EC, [2006] OJ L204/23.

28 Gender-specific EU legislation includes a variety of other directives such as the Directive on Pregnant Workers (92/85/EEC), the Directive on Parental Leave (96/34/EC), and the Directive on the Burden of Proof (97/80/EC). For an up-to-date overview, see Numhauser-Henning, Ann, “EU Equality Law—Comprehensive and Truly Transformative?” in Labour Law, Fundamental Rights and Social Europe, ed. Ronnmar, Mia (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2011), 113–36.Google Scholar

29 Cichowski, Rachel, The European Court and Civil Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).Google Scholar

30 Conant, Lisa, Justice Contained—Law and Politics in the EU (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002).Google Scholar

31 Article 17 TEU.

32 Article 258 TFEU.

33 Kilpatrick, Claire, “Gender Equality: A Fundamental Dialogue,” in Labour Law in the Courts—National Judges and the ECJ, ed. Sciarra, Silvana (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2001): 31–130 Google Scholar at 67–68.

34 On the preliminary reference mechanism, see Clifford J. Carruba and Lacey Murrah, “Legal Integration and the Use of the Preliminary Ruling Process in the EU,” International Organization 59 (Spring 2005): 399–418; Tridimas, Takis “Knocking on Heaven’s Door: Fragmentation, Efficiency and Defiance in the Preliminary Ruling Procedure,” Common Market Law Review 40 (2003): 9.Google Scholar

35 Case 26/62 Van Gend en Loos [1963] ECR 13.

36 Case 26/62 Van Gend en Loos [1963] ECR 13; Case 11/70) Internationale Handelsgesellschaft [1970] ECR 1125.

37 See Conant, Lisa, “Europeanization and the Courts: Variable Patterns of Adaptation among National Judiciaries,” in Transforming Europe, eds. Cowles, Maria Green, Caporaso, James, and Risse, Thomas (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001), 97–115 Google Scholar. The question of the enforceability of EU law against private parties (called horizontal direct effect) as opposed to state bodies (vertical direct effect) has proven rather more difficult. In essence, directives do not have horizontal effect and therefore cannot be used in disputes between private individuals. However, the CJEU has found a variety of ways to address this anomaly, including an expansive definition of the state and the concepts of “indirect” and “incidental” effect. See also Sacha Prechal, Directives in EC Law, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); Dougan, Michael, “When Worlds Collide! Competing Visions of the Relationship between Direct Effect and Supremacy,” Common Market Law Review 44 (2007): 931.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38 Alter, Karen and Vargas, Jeannette, “Explaining Variation in the Use of European Litigation Strategies,” Comparative Political Studies 33/4 (May 2000): 452–82.Google Scholar

39 Karen Alter, “The EU’s Legal System and Domestic Policy,” 496; Alter and Vargas, “Explaining Variation in the Use of European Litigation Strategies,” 457.

40 James Caporaso and Joseph Jupille, “The Europeanization of Gender Equality Policy and Domestic Structural Change,” in Transforming Europe, eds. Maria Green Cowles, James Caporaso, and Thomas Risse (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001), 21–43 at 29–31.

41 Alter and Vargas, “Explaining Variation in the Use of European Litigation Strategies,” 461.

42 See Claire Kilpatrick, “Gender Equality: A Fundamental Dialogue,” 41.

43 Ibid., 46.

44 Alter, Karen, The European Court’s Political Power (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).Google Scholar

45 See Claire Kilpatrick, “Gender Equality: A Fundamental Dialogue,” 45.

46 Ibid., 48–50.

47 Ibid., 94.

48 Claire Kilpatrick, “Gender Equality: A Fundamental Dialogue,” 105.

49 Rachel Cichowski, The European Court and Civil Society.

50 Rachel A. Cichowski and Tanja A. Börzel, “Law, Politics and Society in Europe,” in State of the European Union 6, eds. Tanja A. Börzel and Rachel A. Cichowski (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).

51 Karen Alter, “The EU’s Legal System and Domestic Policy,” 515.

52 Rachel A. Cichowski and Alec Stone Sweet, “Participation, Representative Democracy, and the Courts,” in Democracy Transformed? Expanding Political Opportunities in Advanced Industrial Democracies, eds. Russell J. Dalton and Susan Scarrow (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 192–219 at 203.

53 Rachel Cichowski, The European Court and Civil Society.

54 See the review of Rachel Cichowski’s book The European Court and Civil Society by Vauchez, Antoine: “Democratic Empowerment through Euro-Law?” European Political Science 7 (2008): 444–52.Google Scholar

55 Sabrina Tesoka, “The Differential Impact of Judicial Politics in the Field of Gender Equality. Three National Case Studies under Scrutiny” (European University Institute, Working Paper, Robert Schuman Center, No. 99/18).

56 Claire Kilpatrick, “Gender Equality: A Fundamental Dialogue,” 128.

57 Claire Kirkpatrick (2001), 72–73. On the case of Greece, see the article by Anagnostou in this issue.

58 Alter and Vargas, “Explaining Variation in the Use of European Litigation Strategies,” 462.

59 Burstein, Paul, “Legal Mobilization as a Social Movement Tactic: The Struggle for Equal Employment Opportunity,” American Journal of Sociology 96/5 (March 1991): 1201–1225 Google Scholar at 1204.

60 Katzenstein, Mary Fainsod, Faithful and Fearless—Moving Feminist Protest inside the Church and Military (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998).Google Scholar

61 Mary Fainsod Katzenstein, Faithful and Fearless, 41.

62 Rosenberg, Gerald, The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change? (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 31.Google Scholar

63 Scheingold, Stuart A., The Politics of Rights (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1974 Google Scholar; 2nd edition, 2004), 103.

64 McCann, Michael, “Law and Social Movements,” Annual Review of Law and Social Science 2 (2006), 26.Google Scholar

65 Börzel, Tanja A., “Participation Through Law Enforcement,” Comparative Political Studies 39/1 (2006): 128–52 at 135.Google Scholar

66 Lisa Conant, “Europeanization and the Courts: Variable Patterns of Adaptation among National Judiciaries,” 97–115.

67 Michael McCann, “Law and Social Movements”; Carol Harlow and Richard Rawlings, Pressure Through Law (London: Routledge, 1992).

68 Gwendolyn Gray, “Federalism, Feminism and Multi-level Governance: The Elusive Search for Theory?” in Federalism, Feminism and Multi-level Governance, 19–33 at 30–31.

69 Ann Numhauser-Henning, “EU Equality Law—Comprehensive and Truly Transformative?” 126. See also Fredman, Sandra, “Changing the Norm: Positive Duties in Equal Treatment Legislation,” Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law 12/4 (2009): 369–97.Google Scholar

70 Ann Numhauser-Henning, “EU Equality Law—Comprehensive and Truly Transformative?” 135.

71 Sandra Fredman, “Changing the Norm,” 389–91.

72 Case C-450/93 Kalanke v. Freie Hansestadt Bremen [1995] ECR I-3051; Case C-409/95) Marschall (Hellmut) v. Land Nordrhein Westfalen [1997] ECR I-6363.

73 Article 23, EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.