International Journal of Discrimination and the Law

This paper examines the legal regulation of women's employment in the public sphere in Pakistan. A large part of the legislation relating specifically to the employment of women is highly protective in nature. The 1973 Constitution of Pakistan assumes that women are in need of protection. This assumption is reflected in the labour legislation and in the international labour standards that have been adopted by Pakistan. Much of the existing Labour Code is a legacy of the colonial period and reflects the concerns of the early British factory movement to preserve female modesty and ‘protect’ women's roles within the domestic sphere. This paper attempts to identify those areas of the law most in need of reform if the protective approach to women's participation in the public sphere is to be transcended. Although legislative reform does not necessarily lead to a change in workplace practices, the existence of discriminatory legislation, gaps in existing legislation and a lack of adequate enforcement machinery constitute significant institutional barriers to women's participation in the public sphere. For these reasons, it is argued, calls for law reform and a focus on legislative reform as a strategy for change may be justified.

This article seeks to examine the current state of the law on affirmative action in the United States and Canada. Drawing upon developments at both a statutory and constitutional level it considers to what extent the law permits or requires measures to alter the composition of institutions to make them more representative in terms of race or gender. Its primary focus is on employment. It argues that constitutional provisions and judicial interpretation in Canada has been more sympathetic to affirmative action measures, especially in the past decade. After surveying the early development of affirmative action law in the United States it focuses on recent developments, notably the Civil Rights Act of 1991 and recent Supreme Court decisions such as the Adarand v Pena case, to examine the extent to which the scope for affirmative action measures has been reduced. In Canada the article considers both Charter equality jurisprudence and statutory developments such as the Employment Equity Act of 1986. The article concludes by observing that the position remains complex but that there is scope for affirmative action measures in both jurisdictions, perhaps more so in Canada where such measures do not require a backward looking, compensatory rationale. It also suggests that such measures may now have become well established in the human resources strategies of large corporations in both jurisdictions, rendering their disappearance unlikely.

A recent Israeli case in which a steward sued El-Al (the Israeli Airline) in order to extend benefits to his same-sex partner was the first case in which the Israeli Supreme Court confronted the rights of sexual minorities. This confrontation was inevitable given the rapid legal changes in the legal status of sexual minorities in Israel. These changes include the decriminalization of male homosexual intercourse in 1988, the 1992 amendment of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act—a statute which, in its amended version, prohibits discrimination in employment on the basis of sexual orientation as well as less visible but equally important legal changes.

This article explores the prospects of the legal protection of gays and lesbians in light of these developments. It describes the legal changes that have taken place in recent years—changes which strengthen the protection of sexual minorities. It analyzes the opinions in the Supreme Court's El-Al case and evaluates the potential for exploiting the decision to expand sexual minority rights. It also specifies the areas where further legal changes are needed and evaluates the prospects of whether such changes (both statutory and judicial) will indeed take place given the variety of constraints and pressures on Israeli judges as well as on the legislature.