In search of a balance between the right to equality and other fundamental rights / Emmanuelle Bribosial and Isabelle Rorive, European Commission

This publication identifies the most striking conflicts between certain fundamental rights and the right to equallity and non-discrimination. Stakeholders are endeavouring to establish a typology and a methodology with a view to defining how the national legislature or courts should reason when faced with a conflict of rights between the principle of non-discrimination and fundamental rights. This report illustrates the tensions using examples relating to the right of conscientious objection on religious or philosophical grounds and to the principle of non-discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender. These individual cases reflect conflicts between rights which may also exist under the same principle of equality.