Nondiscrimination

Broadly speaking, nondiscrimination requires that all people should be treated in the same way (or equally), based on the generally accepted principle that all human beings are equal in dignity and rights (UN 1948). Hence, discrimination occurs when people are treated differently in a way that impacts negatively on their human dignity (Ackermann 2006) or for arbitrary reasons lying on individual features, such as race and ethnicity, skin color, sex, sexual orientation, religious belief, class, etc. However, several legislations worldwide distinguish between formal and substantial equity, which justifies differential treatment to ensure substantial equity among citizens. The primordial objective is to remove political, economic, and social obstacles that limit the development of person and his or her political, economic, and social participation. Indeed, positive discrimination (also called affirmative actions) may be justified in cases, for example, of advancing differential treatments toward underrepresented groups to compensate for past discrimination. Such actions do not represent discriminations if they do not establish separate rights for different groups and are not continued after achieving their goals. Nondiscrimination, therefore, intersects both with equality in opportunity (i.e., everyone competes under equal conditions based on his or her capabilities) and equality of achievement (i.e., equality in results) (Deskoska 2010). Moreover, nondiscrimination relates to the novel term “intersectionality,” indicating that multiple forms of discrimination (such as racism, sexism, and classism) often overlap. Instead of considering any discriminatory act as a distinct and isolated case, it should be analyzed in a whole, particularly on how it intertwines in the experience of the people involved.