Disability Discrimination Law Summer School: Comparative Perspectives on Effective Test Case Strategies under the EU Framework Directive

Date: Tuesday 6th June – Friday 16th June 2006

This two-week Summer School is the first of its type in Europe to focus on anti-discrimination legal issues on the ground of disability. It will focus on the potential of the EU Framework Directive on Employment Discrimination in the context of disability. The Framework Directive is the single most important legal instrument at the European level combating discrimination on the ground of disability. Its success or failure will be crucial to the cause of advancing the rights of persons with disabilities in Europe.

This Summer School - which is part funded by the European Commission and the National University of Ireland, Galway, conducted in partnership with Maastricht University and hosted by the National University of Ireland, Galway - will raise general legal awareness about the practical potential of the Directive in the disability context and should appeal to a wide range of persons and bodies including practising lawyers, judges, law students and disability NGOs as well as those more generally interested in public interest litigation.

More particularly, the Summer School is designed to impart skills as well as knowledge to enable participants to construct effective test case strategies under the Directive on behalf of persons with disabilities. Since the Directive is new to Europe, the programme will explore the relevant discrimination caselaw under international and comparative disability discrimination law (especially USA & Canada) in order to gain insights into which strategies have worked elsewhere and the lessons to be learned in a European context. The relevant caselaw of the United Nations human rights treaty bodies as well as the caselaw of the European Court of Human Rights will also be looked at.

A prestigious teaching faculty has been assembled to deliver the programme. It is drawn from an international group of prominent legal experts and especially practitioners who have extensive experience in bringing test cases in the field of disability. Classes will be interactive and a moot court will be arranged to enable participants to gain first hand experience of crafting arguments under the Framework Directive. 

Participants of Disability Discrimination Summer School in July 2005