What Happened to Equality?

In What Happened to Equality? The Construction of the Right to Equal Treatment of Third-Country Nationals in European Union Law on Labour Migration, Friðriksdóttir examines five European Union Directives on labour migration that were adopted based on a sectoral approach to labour migration management. An account of the negotiations between the Commission, the Council and the Parliament on the five Directives reveals how access to territory and the labour market, the right to equal treatment and the right to family reunification were constructed for the different groups of labour migrants and how differentiation between groups of migrants, and discrimination against migrants compared with nationals which contravenes international and European human rights frameworks and international labour law, is institutionalized.

Bjarney Friðriksdóttir, Ph.D, Radboud University, Nijmegen, is a human rights expert with extensive experience in capacity building, policy development, monitoring and reporting on human rights issues, both for United Nations agencies in the field and national human rights institutes.