G Gender Equality in the Universal and Regional Human Rights Systems: Prohibition of Discrimination and Beyond Aleksandra Szczerba-Zawada 1 and Wojciech Burek 2 1 Faculty of Administration and National Security, The Jacob of Paradies University, Gorzów Wielkopolski, Poland 2 Institute of European Studies, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland Synonyms Equality law Definitions Anti-discrimination law is a body of legal norms intended to prevent and sanction discrimination, i. e., less favorable treatment of somebody because of his or her characteristic such as gender, racial or ethnic origin, disability, sexual orientation, etc. Nondiscrimination is considered to be the nega- tive aspect of the equality principle – the obliga- tion of a state to refrain from unjust differential treatment rather than taking positive action to create circumstances that promote full equality (Korkiamäki 2014). Gender anti-discrimination law requires that women and men are treated alike in similar situations unless otherwise justified. In narrow perspective gender anti-discrimination law pro- hibits discrimination on the ground of sex, either directly or indirectly (formal equality). Direct gender discrimination occurs when someone is treated adversely because of her/his sex. Indirect gender discrimination takes place when there is a practice, rule, or policy which seems to apply to everyone in the same way, but in reality it has an adverse effect on people who belong to a par- ticular sex. In a wider perspective, gender anti- discrimination law requires equal opportunities for men and women, i.e., removal of all barriers to economic, political, and social participation on the ground of gender. Such barriers are often indirect, difficult to discern, and rooted in and reinforced by structural phenomena and social representations that have proved particularly resistant to change (gender stereotypes) (“EIGE”, European Institute for Gender Equal- ity). Thus broadly understood gender anti-dis- crimination law requires application of diversified range of actions and instruments to redress deep-rooted and persistent inequalities (equality law). Introduction Both the universal (the United Nations – UN) and regional (the European Union (EU) and the © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 W.Leal Filho et al. (eds.), Gender Equality , Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70060-1_34-1