Stereotyping and “other forms of discrimination” in the Chicago Declaration on the Rights of Older Persons and in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights

This chapter begins with a quote from the non-binding draft of the
“Chicago Declaration of the Human Rights of Older Persons”, one of the most recent contributions to the ongoing debate on the human rights status of older persons. The authors of this chapter note that a paragraph in the preamble of that Declaration conflates discrimination on the grounds of (old) age, on the one hand, and other “forms of discrimination”, namely bias, stereotypes, prejudices, and stigma of older persons,on the other. Observing that, in recent years, the European Court of Human Rights has acknowledged in its case law that stereotyping and other forms of discrimination can affect human rights, this chapter asks
how the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) and the Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) deal with such cases.1 The purpose of our research is to highlight both the potential and the limitations of human rights law to stem the manifestations of ageism, as the proponents of the Chicago Declaration recommend.

ISBN:978 1 78897 210 9

Publication year:2018