Intersectionality And Human Rights Law

This collection of essays analyses how diversity in human identity and disadvantage affects the articulation, realisation, violation and enforcement of human rights. The question arises from the realisation that people, who are severally and severely disadvantaged because of their race, religion, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, class etc, often find themselves at the margins of human rights; their condition seldom improved and sometimes even worsened by the rights discourse. How does one make sense of this relationship between the complexity of people's disadvantage and violation of their human rights? Does the human rights discourse, based on its universal and common values, have tools, methods or theories to capture and respond to the difference in people's lived experience of rights? Can intersectionality help in that quest? This book seeks to inaugurate this line of inquiry.

Global Intersectionality and Contemporary Human Rights argues for an expansive definition of human rights, one that encompasses the harm caused by multiple, intersecting forms of subordination. Intersectionality theory posits that aspects of identity, such as race and gender, are mutually constitutive and intersect to create unique experiences of discrimination and subordination. Perpetrators of sexual violence in armed conflict, of example, often target women based on both gender and ethnicity. Human rights remedies that fail to capture the intersectional nature of human rights violations do not offer comprehensive redress to victims. This title explores the influence of intersectionality theory on human rights in the modern era and traces the evolution of intersectionality as a theoretical framework in the United States and around the world. It draws upon feminist theory and human rights jurisprudence to argue that scholars and activists have under-utilized intersectionality theory in the global discourse of human rights. As the central intergovernmental organization charged with the protection of human rights, the United Nations has been slow to embrace the insights gained from intersectionality theory. This work argues that the United Nations and other human rights organizations must more actively embrace intersectionality as an analytical framework in order to fully address the complexity of human rights violations around the world.

This book theoretically explores intersectionality within human rights norms on violence against women and the derived duties for States.

This book examines the concept of intersectional discrimination and why it has been difficult for jurisdictions around the world to redress it in discrimination law. 'Intersectionality' was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989. Thirty years since its conception, the term has become a buzzword in sociology, anthropology, feminist studies, psychology, literature, and politics. But it remains marginal in the discourse of discrimination law, where it was first conceived. Traversing its long and rich history of development, the book explains what intersectionality is as a theory and as a category of discrimination. It then explains what it takes for discrimination law to be reimagined from the perspective of intersectionality in reference to comparative laws in the US, UK, South Africa, Canada, India, and the jurisprudence of the European Courts (CJEU and ECtHR) and international human rights treaty bodies.

This book examines what international human rights law has gained from the new elements in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). It explores how the CRPD is intricately bound up with other international instruments by studying the relationship between the Convention rights and those protected by other human rights treaties, as well as the overall objectives of the UN. Using a social model lens on disability, the book shows how the Convention sheds new light on the very notion of human rights. The book provides a theoretical framework which explicitly integrates disability into international human rights law. It explains how the CRPD challenges the legal subject by drawing attention to distinct forms of embodiment, before introducing the idea of the 'dis-abled subject', which stems from a recognition that all individuals encounter disability-related issues during their lives. The book also shows how to apply this theoretical framework to several rights and highlights the consequences for the implementation of human rights treaties as a whole. It builds upon the literature of disability studies and legal and political theory, as well as drawing upon the recommendations of treaty bodies and reports of UN agencies and disabled people's organisations. This book thereby provides an agenda-setting analysis for all human rights experts, by showing the benefits of placing disabled people at the heart of international human rights law.

This title offers a new way to think about human rights and the type of harm caused by discrimination globally. It traces the growing recognition of intersectionality in the work of human rights organizations around the world. This work argues that these groups should look for ways to fully incorporate intersectional analysis into the work they do.

This volume in the Brill Research Perspectives in Comparative Discrimination Law addresses intersectionality from the lens of comparative antidiscrimination law. The term ‘intersectionality’ was coined by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw in 1989. As a field, intersectionality has a longer history, of nearly two hundred years. Meanwhile, comparative antidiscrimination law as a field may be just over a few decades old. Thus, intersectionality’s tryst with antidiscrimination law is a fairly recent one. Developed as a critique of antidiscrimination law, intersectionality has had a significant influence on it. Yet, intersectionality’s logic does not seem to have infiltrated the logic of antidiscrimination law completely. Comparative antidiscrimination law continues to develop with intersectionality in sight, but rarely, in step. On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of Crenshaw’s seminal article that coined the term in the context of antidiscrimination law, Shreya Atrey explores this irony. Her article provides a meta-narrative of the development of the two fields with the purpose of showing what appear to be orthogonal trajectories.

Social Identity and the Law: Race, Sexuality and Intersectionality is an important resource for inquiry into the relationship between law and social identity in the contexts of race, sexuality and intersectionality in the United States. The book provides a systematic legal treatment of selected historical and contemporary civil rights and social justice issues in areas affecting African Americans, Latinos/as, Asian Americans and LGBTQ persons from a law and politics perspective. It covers topics such as the legal and social construction of social identity, slavery and the rise of Jim Crow, discrimination based on national origin and citizenship, educational equity, voting rights, workplace discrimination, discrimination in private and public spaces, regulation of intimate relationships, marriage and reproductive justice, and criminal justice. Lecturers will benefit from: Fifty-seven excerpted cases accompanied with engaging questions presented at the beginning of each case to stimulate class discussion. An eResource including 129 supplemental case excerpts and case briefs for all excerpted cases appearing in the book. Suggested reading lists at the end of each chapter recommending key articles and books to help students survey the academic literature on the topics. With a logical chapter structure and accessible writing style, this textbook is an essential companion for use on undergraduate courses on American constitutional law, civil liberties and civil rights, social justice, and race and law.