Equality Rights and Institutional Change: Insights from Canada and the United States

Abstract

In this article, I begin by tracing very briefly the emergence of legal equality rights and anti-discrimination protection in Canada and the United States. I then turn to an analysis of the interaction between legally recognized human rights norms and institutional relationships and change. In exploring this connection, I draw on the insights of legal pluralists and relational feminists to examine the dialectic between formal state law and informal institutional relations and norms. I consider how formal human rights law can act both as an inhibitor and as a facilitator of institutional change.

Keywords: emergence of legal equality rights, anti-discrimination protection, Canada, United States, institutional change