Harriet Samuels

A Defining Moment: A Feminist Perspective On The Law of Sexual Harassment in the Workplace in the Light of the Equal Treatment Amendment Directive

This article considers, from a feminist perspective, the introduction of the European Equal Treatment Amendment Directive (E.T.A.D.) and its impact on the law of sexual harassment in the United Kingdom. Since feminists identified sexual harassment as a problem for women in the 1970s, feminist legal scholars have focused their attention on the law as a means of redressing it. Bringing claims in the U.K. has been difficult because of the absence of a definition of sexual harassment and reliance in the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 on a comparator approach. These problems are illustrated by the recent House of Lords decision in Pearce v. Governing Body of Mayfield Secondary School(2003). The failure of the House of Lords in Pearce to understand sexual harassment as an issue of substantive equality for women makes the introduction of the European law all the more the pressing. The author discusses the implications of the changes embodied in the E.T.A.D. in the light of feminist theory. She argues that the changes envisaged constitute welcome developments which will make it easier to remedy workplace sexual harassment. However, it is also likely that problems will remain for women in establishing sexual harassment claims, particularly if concepts of reasonableness and unwelcome behaviour continue to form part of the legal definition.

A Human Rights Campaign? The Campaign to Abolish Child Slavery in Hong Kong 1919–1938

This article re-examines the, well documented, campaign that took place, in the nineteen twenties and thirties, to eliminate the Chinese custom of keeping mui tsai in the British Crown colony of Hong Kong. Mui tsai were girls sold by their parents, to another family, to work as domestic servants. The girl was not paid wages, but the new family agreed to provide for all her needs. A suitable marriage was to be arranged when she became an adult. Many Chinese saw it as a philanthropic tradition but campaigners in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong viewed it as a form of child slavery. This study builds on the work of earlier scholars, but seeks to offer a different perspective, which focuses on the use of the emerging discourse of human rights. It argues that the tactics and ideology of the anti mui tsai activists exhibit many of the characteristics of a human rights campaign. This includes the attempt to use the emerging international law on slavery and child welfare, and the use of the committees of the League of Nations to hold governments to account. The activists engaged in human rights lobbying, and created trans-national networks where Hong Kong organisations worked with British groups, interested individuals and politicians to end the practice. The anti-mui tsai campaign illustrates many of the problems of using a human right methodology to challenge an allegedly oppressive cultural practice. It therefore provides an interesting lens through which to view the practical and theoretical problems of human rights.

Complete public law : text, cases, and materials

Complete Public Law: Texts, Cases, and Materials combines clear explanatory text and practical learning features with extracts from a wide of primary and secondary materials. This book has been carefully structured with the needs of undergraduate courses in mind. Opening with consideration of basic constitutional principles (in which no previous knowledge is assumed), the authors move on to cover all other essential areas, before closing with extensive consideration of the principles and procedures of judicial review. The two-colour text design allows students to instantly identify the primary materials, and facilitates easy navigation around the book.