UN Practical Guide to Developing Comprehensive Anti-Discrimination Legislation

The result of a three-year long collaboration between the Equal Rights Trust and the UN Human Rights Office, Protecting Minority Rights: A Practical Guide to Developing Comprehensive Anti-Discrimination Legislation is the UN’s definitive guidance on states’ obligations in this area of law.

Development

The Guide is the outcome of a unique collaborative research project implemented under the guidance of an Advisory Committee with experts drawn from across the globe which included four UN Special Rapporteurs, leading academics, members of the judiciary, practising lawyers and representatives of independent equality bodies. Alongside exhaustive research into UN human rights instruments, the jurisprudence and recommendations of the UN treaty bodies and other instruments and analysis of international law, the project team issued calls for evidence to states and civil society, convened eight global online consultations and consulted more than 50 individual experts.

The Guide sets out the core content of the rights to equality and non-discrimination, as derived from international human law and provides practical guidance to States on the essential elements of anti-discrimination law frameworks. It synthesises and harmonises existing international legal standards, to provide clear and accessible guidance on the necessary scope, structure and content of comprehensive anti-discrimination laws and provides concrete country-based practices and practical guidance.

The Guide was launched on Human Rights Day 2022 at the University of Peace in Costa Rica and formed part of Human Rights Week, Marking the launch UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, called on States to “renew and reinforce their commitments to the equal enjoyment of human rights through enacting enforcing and implementing comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation.” An unprecedented group of 32 UN Special Procedure Mandate Holders issued a joint-statement which urged all UN member States to take the publication of the Guide “as a catalyst to action” and to use its contents as “practical tools for the development and reform of their legal frameworks on equality and non-discrimination.”

Impact

In the two years following the launch of the English edition of Guide, the Trust and the UN Human Rights Office implemented a global programme of activity to raise awareness about the new guidance and to promote its use. In early 2023, we held 12 online consultation events engaging hundreds of activists from 70+ different states, in all global regions. During 2023, the Guide was translated into Arabic, Chinese, Russian, and Spanish by the UN Human Rights Office, It was also translated into national languages by national human rights institutions in Brazil and the Republic of Korea and by a civil society organisation in Japan. The partners provided briefings to legislators and policy-makers in countries ranging from Costa Rica to Norway; and convened public events with international partners such as the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

In the two years since its launch, the Practical Guide has had a significant impact on law, policy and practice at both the international and domestic levels. For example:

  • The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has made the adoption of comprehensive equality laws the primary goal of the Non-Discrimination Pillar of the UN Human Rights Office Strategic Plan.
  • UN human rights treaty bodies, which have historically recommended the adoption of specific, single-ground anti-discrimination laws, are now routinely recommending the adoption of comprehensive equality laws; four of the eight treaty bodies have explicitly endorsed the use of the Guide as a basis for law reform. 
  • National Human Rights Institutions in four countries - Australia, Brazil, Indonesia and Mexico – have initiated equality law reform projects in response to the publication.
  • Civil society equality law movements have been established in response to the publication of the Practical Guide in Costa Rica, Japan and Nepal.

At the beginning of 2025, the Equal Rights Trust and the UN Human Rights Office initiated the third phase of our collaboration, a global initiative to support national efforts to enact comprehensive equality laws. The partners aim to respond to the needs and demands of civil society equality law movements in a group of priority countries, identified through a global mapping and consultation exercise which has been underway since 2023.