In her dissertation, entitled “The constitutional prohibition of sex discrimination as a prohibition of sexist discrimination”, Elisabeth Joller examines the prohibition of sex discrimination enshrined in the Swiss Federal Constitution. She reconstructs how this prohibition has been interpreted and developed over time in case law and legal scholarship.
Her critical analysis of case law and legal scholarship relating to Article 8 paragraphs 2 and 3 of the Federal Constitution shows that conventional conceptions of the prohibition of sex discrimination offer only limited protection against social and legal structures of inequality. The dissertation advocates a post-categorical conception of the prohibition of sex discrimination that understands discrimination as a social practice of creating hierarchies. By broadening the concept of sex on the basis of social constructivist theories and theories of power, this conception is able to encompass various dimensions of sex-based discrimination. The dissertation was published by Stämpfli Verlag in 2024.
The Professor Walther Hug Prize is awarded by the Professor Walther Hug Foundation. It recognises outstanding doctoral dissertations on Swiss law that have already received the highest distinction from the university at which they were submitted and are distinguished by their exceptional academic quality.
