Equality and empowerment for decent work

Legal instruments currently embody a variety of conceptions of equality. While formal equality typically carries negative duties (e.g. non-discrimination), the concept of Substantive equality embodies three overlapping approaches - equality of results, equality of opportunity and equality of human dignity - which entail positive duties to promote equality. These three approaches, Hepple argues, lie at the heart of the ILO's concept of decent work. To implement substantive equality, he proposes an incremental approach - from reliance on voluntary initiative to penalties for non-compliance - which depends crucially on the active participation of all stakeholders and, therefore, on the empowerment of the disadvantaged groups themselves.