Socio-Legal Studies Association


Where law meets social sciences & the humanities

Universal Credit and Gender equality: Workshop a feminist judicial review 

Monday 21 October 2019

Birmingham University Law School, Edgbaston B15 2TT, between 10:15–16:00

This workshop was organised by the universities of Strathclyde, Birmingham and Bristol, Child Poverty Action Group and the Law Centre Northern Ireland, funded by the SLSA under its seminar competition. 


The aim was to discuss legal and policy arguments concerning Universal Credit and gender equality and the prospects for judicial review challenges on gender equality and human rights grounds (whether real or fictional). This was an exploratory workshop, developing an innovative methodology which draws on use of fictional scenarios and the approach adopted in the Feminist Judgments Project and Scottish Feminist Judgments Project (showing how cases could have been decided differently from a feminist perspective). The workshop focused specifically on two policies relating to gender equality, one of which has been litigated – the Universal Credit single payment and two-child limit – but there was also space to consider other Universal Credit gender issues. We brought together a range of participants working in this area across the UK’s legal jurisdictions from legal practice, policy and civil society organisations and academics.

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