THE WELSH GOVERNMENT AND NATIONAL ASSEMBLY FOR WALES AND THE PROMOTION OF EQUALITY FOR DISABLED PEOPLE IN RESPECT OF INDEPENDENT LIVING.

Domestically, the Equality Act is now relatively well established in terms of disability discrimination and apart from the "reversal" of Malcolm as a consolidating Act brought little radically new from the DDA 1995. The scope for radical change is therefore probably limited domestically and to a lesser extent via the ECJ, the traditional focus of domestic discrimination lawyers attacks on UK law.
However significantly in Volkov v Ukraine and IB v Greece the ECHR has brought Article 8 and by definition itself into the employment arena, (albeit in the unfair dismissal rather than discrimination claim context).
Following on therefore from Kiss v Hungary in which the dangers of "legislative stereotyping" were highlighted by the Court and other cases (eg Glor and Kiyutin) it is possible to see the germination of a relatively unexplored jurisprudence in the ECHR in the disability discrimination in employment field.
If one links this with the potential impact of the UN Convention ratified 23/12/2010 by the EU this not only gives the ECJ greater scope, but also the ECtHR in judging baseline standards and reasonableness.
Further, I would like to explore the issue that discrimination rights are generally individual and thereby enforcement is individual and thereby often limited by emotional and financial pressures. I would therefore like to research the position, both in terms of availability and effectiveness, in respect of collective enforcement of discrimination rights in Europe and see what lessons could be learnt from other jurisdictions. (In France for example there is in race discrimination a limited right to pursue discrimination claims collectively by the TU).