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This book is about the legal regulation of caste discrimination. It highlights the difficulty of capturing caste in international and domestic law, and suggests solutions. Its aim is to contribute to the task of understanding how to secure effective legal protection from and prevention of discrimination on grounds of caste, and why this is important and necessary. It does this by examining the legal conceptualization and regulation of caste as a social category and as a ground of discrimination, in international law and in two national jurisdictions (India and the UK), identifying their complexities, strengths, limitations and potential. Adopting a broadly chronological approach, the book aims to present an account of the role of law in the construction of caste inequality and discrimination, and the subsequent legal efforts to dismantle it. The book will be of value to lawyers and non-lawyers, academics and students of human rights, international law, equalities and discrimination, descent-based and caste-based discrimination, minority rights, and South Asia and its diaspora. It will be a resource for legal practitioners and those in the public and non-governmental sectors involved in the implementation, interpretation and enforcement of equality law in the UK - the first European country to introduce the word "caste" into domestic equality legislation - and in countries with South Asian diasporas such as the USA.
List of contents
1. What is Caste?, 2. The Dalits and the History of Caste Inequality, 3. The Legal Regulation of Caste Discrimination: Lessons from India, 4. Caste Discrimination and International Human Rights Law Standards: International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination 1965 and the UN Human Rights Treaties, 5. Caste Discrimination and International Human Rights Law Standards: UN Charter Bodies, 6. Caste in the UK 1950-2009, 7. British Discrimination Law and Caste: from the Race Relations Act 1965 to the Equality Bill 2009, 8. Caste Discrimination and the Making of the Equality Act 2010, 9. Caste Discrimination in the UK: beyond the Equality Act 2010
About the author
Annapurna Waughray is Professor of Human Rights Law at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.
Summary
This book suggests solutions for capturing caste in international and domestic law, examining legal conceptualization and regulation of caste as a social category in international law, India and the UK. It considers how effective legal protection from and prevention of discrimination on grounds of caste can be secured, and why this is important.
