Global social movements for justice have called for better legal responses to the harms of inequality. These inequalities have traditionally been dealt with in the political sphere and legal measures to address them have taken little account of emerging knowledge about the biological impact of unequal treatment. We use the concept ‘bioinequalities’ to foreground the relationship increasingly articulated in studies that show that social stress and trauma associated with unequal treatment have a significant epigenetic and intergenerational impact on the body. This article proposes a way to address the health harms that result from inequality by drawing on the existing concept of the ‘hostile environment’ in sexual harassment jurisprudence in Australia. Our ‘bioinequality’ approach focuses on the way that inequality operates in and as a hostile and harmful environment for the embodied and embedded beings that live in it. We examine the possibilities of using the concept of a hostile environment to more effectively address discriminatory harms alongside a positive duty to create non-hostile environments. In so doing we offer a broader, bioscientifically informed approach that can inform equality laws in other jurisdictions.

中文翻译：

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生物不平等的挑战：通过法律解决不平等待遇对健康的影响

全球正义社会运动呼吁对不平等的危害做出更好的法律回应。传统上，这些不平等问题是在政治领域解决的，解决这些问题的法律措施很少考虑到关于不平等待遇的生物学影响的新知识。我们使用“生物不平等”这一概念来突出研究中日益明确的关系，这些研究表明，与不平等待遇相关的社会压力和创伤对身体具有显着的表观遗传和代际影响。本文通过借鉴澳大利亚性骚扰判例中现有的“敌对环境”概念，提出了一种解决不平等导致的健康危害的方法。我们的“生物不平等”方法侧重于不平等在其中运作的方式以及对生活在其中的具身和嵌入生物的敌对和有害环境。我们研究了使用敌对环境的概念来更有效地解决歧视性伤害以及创造非敌对环境的积极义务的可能性。通过这样做，我们提供了一种更广泛的、基于生物科学的方法，可以为其他司法管辖区的平等法提供信息。