HUMAN RIGHTS AND EQUALITY
Recent debate in the UK has focused on the relationship between human rights and equality. The Equalities Review (Cabinet Office, 2007) provides a new definition of the equal society which relates the two: An equal society protects and promotes equal, real freedom and substantive opportunity to live in the ways people value and would choose, so that everyone can flourish. An equal society recognises people’s different needs, situations and goals, and removes the barriers that limit what people can do and can be. A society which protects and promotes equality successfully is one in which everyone is treated as being of equal value – as recognised in human rights principles – and effectively enabled to live a fulfilling life. This definition of equality is not just about helping disadvantaged individuals reach their goal: ‘It also recognises that we all share some of the responsibility for setting the conditions in which we can improve our own life chances, and for making sure that we are all treated with equal dignity and worth. It recognises different needs and identities, and provides for equal participation in society’ (Cabinet Office, 2007: 16). 4.2 Discrimination and equality Discrimination legislation, case law and action in the UK has a longer history, although the inclusion of four of the six strands is relatively recent, and there are different ranges of legal sanctions applied to each. Of particular interest in the context of migrants, especially because many of these can be described as White, is the definition of racial discrimination contained in the 1976 Act (and the Race Relations (Northern Ireland) Order 1997) as treating less favourably than another on racial grounds, with racial grounds then explained in S3 of the Act: Racial grounds means any of the following grounds, namely colour, race, nationality or ethnic or national origins. In the 30 years since the passing of the Act, fortified by the arrival of the duties to promote race equality in 2001, a structure for monitoring has been built up, particularly by public bodies, employers and others, to measure possible discrimination in service delivery and employment, and thus to provide good information about the progress of race equality policies as well as possible defences against any discrimination action. These monitoring efforts generally use, as recommended by the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE), the ethnic groups identified in the Census as the basis for measuring equality actions, which were themselves proposed by the CRE. The problem is that this ethnic monitoring is 61