She has published widely and has numerous peer reviewed publications in the fields of gender equality, labour law, and human rights. Her books include Comparative Human Rights (OUP, 2018); Human Rights Transformed (OUP 2008); Discrimination Law (OUP, 2nd ed 2011); Women and the Law (OUP, 1997); The State as Employer (Mansell, 1988) with Gillian Morris and Labour Law and Industrial Relations in Great Britain (2nd ed, Kluwer, 1992) with Bob Hepple. She edited Age as an Equality Issue (Hart, 2003) with Sarah Spencer, and Discrimination and Human Rights: the Case of Racism (OUP, 2001).

She holds degrees from the University of Oxford and the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa She has been an expert advisor on equality for a variety of governments and organizations, including the UK, Northern Ireland, Canada, the ILO, UN Women, the World Bank, the EU Commission, and the UN Working Group on non-discrimination against women in social and economic life. Most recently, she was a member of the expert drafting group of the Abidjan Principles on the Right to Education in the context of Privatization.