ABSTRACT
The dispute that we are calling "traditional" arises where the respondent avowedly treats the claimant unequally, based on some objective status. The traditional model structures different kinds of claims based on sexual orientation, such as age of consent, employment, housing or inheritance disputes. Arguments have arisen in sex-based affirmative action cases. The European Communities Equal Treatment Directive prohibits sex discrimination, but "without prejudice to measures to promote equal opportunity for men and women, in particular by removing existing inequalities which affect women's opportunities." The traditional model also encompasses claims commonly arising under routine statutory and administrative classifications. Virtually any statutory or administrative classification can comport some degree of arbitrariness, opening it up to the prospect of a discrimination claim. These disputes, too, illustrate how substantive legal distinctions which may possess an arbitrary element nevertheless fulfill the requirements of formal determinacy.
